Web & Mobile Introspection - New Debug Feature!

** New Feature **

STD Integrated Framework

Web & Mobile Debug Introspection

    With the release of the new STD Integrated Framework for PowerBuilder and Appeon (version 2015.4.0.43 and higher), the framework was enhanced to expose the Debug/Spy feature that has been available to native PB applications for many releases. The framework's Debug/Spy feature is normally activated by the application user selecting the keyboard CTRL+SHIFT+F1 keys in succession. This key sequence informs the framework to display a dialogue that shows the application user the various PowerBuilder classes in vogue for the dialog in focus.

      In the Web Browser and especially in the Mobile world, the keyboard CTRL+SHIFT+F1 sequence is either not recognized or physically impossible on a virtual keyboard. The latest STD Integrated Framework has been enhance to work around these limitations. This feature of course is most valuable to the Application Developer and Quality Assurance personnel to introspect the active classes with a business dialogue. This can be key pieces of information in isolating what components are active within a problem area of an application. However, given hard to pin-point issues in production - even the application business user can be instructed to use this feature to collect critical information about a problem area in the application.

    For the Web and Mobile world, the first step in activating the Debug/Spy feature is logging into the AEM (Appeon Enterprise Manager) console for the related Appeon Server that is serving up the Web and/or Mobile application. Within the AEM, navigate to the Application => PB Features => INI settings area of the console. Once located, select your Web/Mobile application's INI file. This file of course will be the one you were supplied with by the STD Integrated Framework. Within the INI file, scroll down and locate the [DEBUG] section and within that area, the "Debug_Mode" keyword. Most likely, the current value assigned to this keyword is "N". You will need to change that value to "N", as shown:

    Once the "Debug_Mode=Y" value has been set, restart your Appeon Mobile or Web based application. You should now notice that the Integrated framework has automatically exposed two extra menu features: a) a new Menu Item entitled "Debug" located to the far right hand side of the horizontal text menus and b) a new "Debug" icon appearing to the far right-hand side of all related toolbars. Selecting either menu item or toolbar item will direct the framework to display the following Debug/Spy dialog:

 
     The Debug/Spy icon on the upper menu or its toolbar will direct the Debug/Spy to display the components involved around the Main or MDI "Controller" dialogue. The Debug/Spy icon on the lower menu or its toolbar will direct the Debug/Spy to display the components involved around the Main, Pop-up, Child or MDI_Child dialogue (depending on the application style being used) being displayed.

     On the Mobile Android or iOS equipped devices, the menu item text or their toolbar icons are displayed as drop downs available from the AWS (Appeon Work Space) shell when running your PowerBuilder application. Within the AWS, the new "Debug" and icon are displayed similar to the Web Browser above. Again, selecting either the menu text (debug) or its associated debug icon will engage the Debug/Spy framework dialog, as follows:

   Once the Debug/Spy dialogue is activated, the application user can copy, print and/or email the component diagnostics to the appropriate support personnel for further analysis. It should be noted though that the Tracing and Profiling (another new feature) are only available to native PowerBuilder applications and thus those options are disabled in the Web and Mobile environments.

    I hope that this new innovative framework feature is of significant help when trying to analyze problem areas of your PowerBuilder and/or Appeon applications.

Regards ... Chris

New Release (2015R4) of the STD "Integrated" FrameWork!

** Hot News **

 Integrated Foundation Classes (2015R4) Released!

 "THE" PowerBuilder Classic & Appeon Framework!

(v2015.4.0.43 - September 29, 2015)

 

   Software Tool & Die Inc (STD) is very pleased to announce that they have just released an updated version 2015R4 (2015.4.0.43) of their Integrated Foundation Class library for PowerBuilder "Classic", Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile!

   The latest version contains the following updates and has been tested with Appeon Appeon 2015.328.00 (GA) using the official MR (maintenance  releases) of PowerBuilder "Classic" versions 12.1, 12.5.1 and 12.6. Testing inside of PB included Win32 (both P-code & M-code) deployments while testing inside of Appeon included latest Web Browsers, latest Apple Tablet/Smart Phone and Android Tablet/Smart Phone  deployments.

Example of the DEBUG/SPY feature now available in iOS applications!

Release 2015.4.0.43 change highlights ...

• Framework was system tested with: PowerBuilder Classic 12.1, 12.5.1 and 12.6; Appeon and 2015R1 (2015.0328.00); iOS 9.0.1 and Android 5.1.1 (both Smart Phone & Tablet); IE10/11; FireFox 40.0.3; Safari 5.1.7; Opera 32.0.1948.25; Chrome 45.0.2454.101,  Edge 20.10240.16384.0 )  
• Added code to "FN_Open_Sheet_Window_WithParm" to check if the "base" name object class is being passed in.
• Revised the code in "FN_Open_Tab_Page" class to log the proper class name being opened.
• Revised the code in "FN_Open_Tab_Page_WithParm" class to log the proper class name being opened.
• Created a new global function "FN_Open_User_Object" to handle generic User Object instantiation.
• Created a new global function "FN_Open_User_Object_WithParm" to handle generic User Object instantiation.
• Revised "FN_Open_Window" class to log the proper class name being opened.
• Revised "FN_Open_Window_WithParm" class to log the proper class name being opened.
• Added new instance variables to the "nc_app_controller_master" class as follows:
  
  1. Added ib_offline flag to allow support to take the application "Offline" for maintenance.
  2. Added new JVM Class to handle JavaVM processing capabilities.
  3. Added new "STD_FC_PB_EJB" PBL library to allow framework compiles for JVM entities.
• Revised the "oe_open" event of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to handle the OFFLINE condition.
• Added code in the "Destructor" event of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to handle the JVM.
• Revised the "Constructor" event of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to handle the OFFLINE condition.
• Revised the "wn_master" class' "oe_print_window" event to use the current Window's coordinates for printing.
• Added a new "oe_syscommand" event to the "wn_master" class' to allow low-level O/S notifications to be monitored.
• Revised the "wn_splash_master" class' "Timer" event to close the current dialogue sooner and not interfere with any animation.
• Revised the "mu_application_master" class to display a new DEBUG menu option when in DEBUG mode.
• Revised the "oe_close" event of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to close the Application Profile Tracing file if active.
• Revised the "of_set_application_location" method of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to use a "/" at the end to conform to MOBILE standards.
• Added the "of_get_profiler_trace" and "of_set_profiler_trace" methods to the "nc_app_controller_master" class to handle Application Profiling!
• Added new "of_createjavavm" and "of_createinstance" methods to the "nc_app_controller_master" class to handle Java Class interaction!
• Added code to the "DropDown" event of the "vs_dp_master" class to "Work Around" a Calendar display issue when the WeekNumber property is requested!
• Added new "Profiling" CB to the "wn_debug_list_master" class to support Application Profiling!
• Revised the "oe_PostConstructor" event of the "wn_log_viewer_master" class to fix issues in Appeon Mobile.
• Revised the "oe_Delete" event of the "wn_master" class to return a completion code.
• Added new "of_display_profile_information" method to the "nc_app_controller_master" class to new "Application PROFILE" display dialog (wn_profile_master).
• Revised the "Key" event of the "nc_app_controller_master" class to Open the new "Application PROFILE" display dialog on CTRL+SHIFT+F2.
• Created a new "wn_profile_master" class to enable/disable "Application PROFILE" tracing at any time in the PB Application.
• Fixed an ImportFile ( ) issue with the "wn_log_viewer_master" window class so that the LOG would be viewable on Android devices (Appeon 2015.0328.00)!

   

Future

1)  Continued performance improvements in the PB, Web and Mobile single source framework.
2)  Add more PB, Web and Mobile features (ie: controls, Active Directory, etc).
3)  Integrate Open Source tools like Spell Checking, OCR, Imaging, and more!
4) Add new GUI controls
5) Extend the IIS (Web Services) framework

6) Support for NFC communications and other new features.

The FC's are *free* and can be downloaded (along with a sample Order Entry application) from the SourceForge website!

Enjoy ... Chris

Appeon Seminar in Japan - October 2015!

Hot News

Upcoming Appeon Seminar in Japan

 

    After the huge success of the Appeon Seminar in Seoul Korea in September 2015, Appeon will continue their Asian seminar series in Tokyo on October 13, 2015. This seminar is brought together in collaboration with SAP Japan and PowerBuilder master distributor Nippon Computer Systems. Appeon expects about 100 companies in attendance with topics covered will include news about the SAP-Appeon partnership, future direction of PowerBuilder, customer demos, and demonstration of the new features in Appeon 2015.

Check out the seminar agenda

 

Regards ... Chris

PowerBuilder Road-Map!

Hot News

PB Vision and Road-map Webcasts

     Appeon is planning to do a series of Webcasts to present the vision and road-map that are planned for PowerBuilder. The first webcast will be hosted at the end of October 2015 and will focus on explaining to the community Appeon's vision for PowerBuilder. The second webcast will be presented several weeks later and will focus on explaining to the community the high-level road-map planned for PowerBuilder. Finally, in early next year there will be a final Webcast in this series to explain to the PowerBuilder Community the detailed road-map that is planned for PowerBuilder.

     Stay connected with Appeon and get updates to the PowerBuilder road-map via the Appeon Website.
 
Regards ... Chris

STD Web Service Framework - Service Pack#3

** Hot News **

PB Classic Web Service Framework Update!

     Software Tool & Die Inc are please to announce the release of their updated (Service Pack #3) Web Service STD Foundation Classes for IIs (STD FC IIs) version 2015.3.1.51. The updated Web Service IIs framework is solely targeted to helping PowerBuilder Classic developers, develop .Net based Web Services deployed to IIs. The IIs based framework takes advantage of RAD techniques - employes an MVC (Model, View, Controller) architecture for superior performance, flexibility and extendability.

 
    All the STD frameworks are free and can be downloaded from its STD Foundation Classes SourceForge project website.

    The Web Service framework - while greatly improving the PB & Appeon developer's productivity - also includes these types of features to help with RAD based projects:

• Helps the PB developer to Implement "stateless" programming
• Does DBMS transaction management automatically
• Manages DataStores for you automatically
• Facilitates MS-Windows Power-Shell processing.
• Facilitates  MVC design & programming
• Provides Encryption / Decryption servicesProvides extended numerical services (ie: And / Or / Xor / Xand / etc features to PowerScript
• Provides Result Set generation for any data
• Provides HTML generation for any data
• Allows STMP eMail generation
• and much more!

    The main updates included in Service Pack #3 to the STD Web Service FC's for IIs include ... 

• New INI value "WScript_Shell" (Y/N) that enables/disables WHScript usage.
• Revised the "nc_powershell_master" class to handle Windows 10 IIs PowerShell processing properly.
• Revised the "nc_powershell_master" class to use WinAPI versus "WScript.Shell".
• Revised the "nc_powershell_master" class to log more information when in DEBUG mode.
• Revised the "ns_sqlca_master" class to handle error conditions more effectively.
• Revised the "nc_iis_master" class to better set the DEBUG mode based on a combination of the Project object and INI settings.
• General code clean-up & optimization.
• Tested with IIs on Windows 7, 8, 10, 2008R2 and 2012

 The STD Web Service framework is free and can be downloaded from its STD Foundation Classes SourceForge project website.

Regards   ... Chris

PowerBuilder Applications in the new Edge Web Browser!

** Hot News **

PowerBuilder Web Applications

Engage the new Windows10 EDGE Browser!

  The new Edge web browser launched with MS-Windows 10 has a new look & feel and technical architecture. Microsoft is currently planning for the Edge to become the standard browser in the MS-Window line with Internet Explorer eventually being retired.

OrderEntry PowerBuilder application running in the Edge browser!

   Last week, Appeon Corporation released a new version of Appeon Web product housed within its latest maintenance release version of the Appeon 2015 for PowerBuilder software release - MR#328. This new Appeon software version not only included support for the new W10 O/S but also included a hidden gem - Appeon`s first beta support for the Edge web browser. Now PowerBuilder developers can build and deploy their PB Applications to the web and have them run directly in the new Edge web browser using Appeon Web! Just like they can do today utilizing either the: IE, FireFox, Opera, or Chrome web browsers* - utilizing Appeon Web`s "leading edge" (sorry - no pun intended) web technology.

  Since I was testing my Web Service and Integrated Foundation Classes with the new MS-Windows 10 O/S, I decided to engage the Edge browser with my example applications. To my delight, the example OrderEnrtry application built from the STD Integrated framework worked flawlessly the first time running inside the new Edge web browser.

  At this time, Appeon Corporation do not claim that the new Edge browser is "officially" supported. However, their web browser plugin does seem to work very nicely with the Edge in my early testing.  If you would like to get a jump start on testing your Appeon Web based PowerBuilder applications in the new Edge browser, I would highly recommend downloading Appeon for PowerBuilder version 2015.0328.00.

* - please note that Appeon Web still works with the MS-Windows based Safari web browser. However, this browser is no longer supported by Apple and for this reason, Appeon will be discontinuing its plug-in support for this browser in the next release.

Regards ... Chris

Appeon for PowerBuilder Update!

** Hot News **

Appeon for PowerBuilder 2015

  MR#328 Released

   

    Appeon Corporation has announced the release #0328 of a maintenance release of Appeon for PowerBuilder 2015, which supports Microsoft Windows 10. Also, included in this maintenance release is the replacement of Appeon’s NPAPI browser-plugin to comply with changes in Google Chrome version 45 and newer.

    Appeon would like to thank their community for submitting requests and issues as well as, supplying valuable comments on their Support Center and Appeon Developer Group!

What’s New:

• Supports MS-Windows 10.
• Supports IIS 10 with .NET 4.6.
• Removed NPAPI dependency from the Appeon browser plug-in, which is required for Chrome version 45 and newer.
• Supports text centered vertically in SingleLineEdit, StaticText, & EditMask controls (mobile only).
  
• Able to get the width and height of the Appeon Workspace screen.
  
• Supports the hide/display of the normal view icon on the Appeon Workspace title bar.
  
• Supports the HintText property of the SingleLineEdit control (mobile only).
  
• Supports the Run PowerScript function on the Android OS.
• Appeon Mobile now supports compiling 64-bit compatible iOS native apps.
• Supports the silent installation of all Appeon components including Appeon Developer, Appeon Server of all types (except for EAServer and NetWeaver), Appeon Server Web Component, and Appeon Help.
• Enhanced NCharBind data type support in MS SQL Server.
• Supports the era setting of PowerBuilder 12.5 Japanese version.
• Various bug fixes ... read the list.

Download the update!

• If you've already have Appeon 2015 installed then you directly upgrade by installing maintenance release build 328.
• If you're new to Appeon or have a version of Appeon pre-dating 2015 then you should download the full installation of Appeon 2015 build 328.

Update your Applications!

    Please, remember to update (re-deploy) your Appeon for PowerBuilder applications after installing the latest Appeon version in order to activate all the fixes & features listed above.

 

 

 Enjoy ... Chris

Installing GhostScript for PowerBuilder on Windows 10!

** "Kool" Tip **

GhostScript on Windows 10

PDF Generation for PowerBuilder Classic

 

   Most PowerBuilder developers know that the DataWindow object class in PowerBuilder (PB) Classic utilizes the open source (GNU) version of the GhostScript (GS) software to convert PostScript printer output into an Adobe PDF (Portable Data Format) file. The challenge this year for PB Developers moving into the MS-Windows version 10 domain, is that all drivers must be signed in order for the new O/S to accept the driver. This creates an issue for the GS installation as even the latest version 9.16 does not supply signed MS-Windows drivers.

  The good news though is that the PB Developer can get around this roadblock in the new O/S by following the procedure I used below to install GS v9.16. Without this technique, the GS install will not complete due to finding an unsigned driver. The install will in fact get stuck in a closed loop ... select the .INF, get an unsigned driver message, click next, get an unsigned error and voila - your back at the select the .INF file part again in the MS-Windows 10 install printer wizard!

  The following procedure is what I used to circumvent the unsigned GS driver issue in W10, as follows:

1) Hold down the SHIFT key while you click Restart.

2) Once your computer has rebooted, choose the Troubleshoot option.

 

3) Then select the Advanced options.

4) You will now be prompted to restart your Computer again.
5) After restarting, you will need to press the F7 key!

6) Now your PC will reboot and you will be able to install unsigned drivers without any error messages! 

Now during the GhostScript installation, once you get to selecting the printer driver from the GS installation's LIB folder, you should now see the MS-Windows security dialogue allowing the GS Driver to be installed even though its not signed!

  Some of you may be saying to yourself ... OMG, How will I ever get around this when I deploy GS into the production realm? My technical support people will never allow this procedure to be used the our production environment! To that I would answer ... how about using this approach (click here) instead?

  I hope that this article has helped prepare you for the world of MS-Windows 10 with PowerBuilder. I have now personally used the above procedure on two W10 PC's to successfully install GhostScript and use it with PB 12.1, 12.5 and 12.6.  

Regards ... Chris

STD Framework Project Updates!

** "Kool" news **

STD Frameworks on SourceForge

New project Features!

    Software Tool & Die Inc (STD) is very pleased to announce that the Foundation Class (FC) project on the SourceForge website has had some significant improvements as of late. The FC project that supports PowerBuilder, Appeon and EAServer has had an amazing download activity this year. In fact, year to date figures currently stand at 3,844 downloads! In order to support this significantly increased use, new project features have been enabled for framework users.

Support:

    Framework users can now contact the framework designer directly using the new "Support" link located at the top of the STD FC Project. The support link will enable direct email contact for framework help.

Tickets:

   Framework users can now see a list of open maintenance and enhancement tickets on either the Integrated or Web Service framework. Developers who are logged into the STD FC SourceForge project can also open tickets directly on a framework and/or specific feature.

Discussion: 

    The newest feature is the Discussion forums. There are three forums: General, Integrated and Web Service. The Discussion is open to all framework users to puruse. To open a discussion or reply to a question, the developer must log into the SourceForge project in order to participate.

   The general discussion forum is just that - general questions about overall framework strategies, direction, futures, etc. The Integrated discussion is specific to the Integrated framework which encompasses Appeon and PowerBuilder Client Server, Web and Mobile based applications. The last discussion area is around the Web Service framework specifically for PowerBuilder. However, both Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile can take advantage of these Web-services at run time as a "Consumer".

    Once inside a specific discussion, any FC user my browse any discussion thread. However, in order to participate in any discussion, the developer is required to log into the SourceForge STD project. Once they start participating in a discussion thread they will receive emails on various postings. These email updates also allow the thread participant to continue the thread update via email responses.

    All-in-all, the new SourceForge features enabled for the STD FC's on SourceForge further enhances the direction and dedication of the frameworks to continue to be the best frameworks available in the market for either PowerBuilder, Appeon or EAServer.

Regards ... Chris

Drag & Drop Into PowerBuilder!

** Hot News **

Drag & Drop Into PowerBuilder

Example Application!

    Software Tool & Die Inc. are please to announce a new example application built from the free open source STD Integrated Foundation Classes that demonstrates dragging files from MS-Windows Explorer into any PowerBuilder application. The Foundation Classes provide an automatic interface to the MS-Windows operating system that enables the Drag Into feature by setting one Window class property!

   The new DragDrop_Into.exe application is built using the latest version of the Integrated Foundation Class library utilizing PowerBuilder v12.1. However, the application is ready to migrate to PB 12.5.x or 12.6 using PB's built-in migration feature.


   The Drag & Drop INTO Example application can be downloaded from the SourceForge web site ... click here!


Enjoy ... Chris