Introduction to PowerBuilder

Version 7.0 Features

The following is intended for those who have experience in earlier versions and want to have a quick view of version 7.0 features. If you are new to PowerBuilder, you may want to skip this section.

• New interface to launch painters: The painter centric interface is replaced with object centric interface. Now, you don't find painter specific icons on Powerbar, instead you will find New, Open and Inherit icons. All most all painters have got start wizards. Upon answering wizards, you will be taken to the painter and things to be completed are added to the To-Do-List organizer.
• Interfaces of all painters are changed to version 6.x Debug painter's interface. Each painter is divided into different panes and in each pane you can open one or more views of the same or different objects. You no longer have to close script painter to paint another object in the window painter; you can keep both views open. If you have a large monitor, you will really enjoy this feature.
• To-Do-List Organizer: Most of the wizards add entries to this organizer. This real-world notepad like interface with yellow background lists entries like an organizer to-do-list. Selecting the entry will automatically take you to the specific task, by opening the specific painter if required. You can add static or hyperlink entries manually, mark entries complete and clear entries. This is really an innovative feature for a development tool like PowerBuilder.
• Quick access to recent 36 applications, 36 objects and 10 connections. The File menu option lists all recently used objects in three categories, Recently used Objects, Applications and Connections. You can configure the number object names to cache from the 'Window/System Options�' menu option.
• You can customize PowerBuilder keyboard shortcuts to match with your favorite keyboard shortcuts from the 'Window/Keyboard Shortcuts�' menu option.
• New wizards feature accepts all values interactively and you can go back and forth and upon completion, most of them add entries to to-do-list organizer. There are three types of wizards, Start Wizards, Object Wizards and Project Wizards.
• DataWindow Painter Updates:
• Now, you can use stored procedures to apply changes to the database. You can specify separate stored procedures for INSERT/ DELETE/ UPDATE.
• The DataWindow painter now automatically generates names for all controls (formerly called objects) in a DataWindow object.
• Provides unlimited undo/redo functionality.
• Supports GIF and JPEG image formats.
• DataWindow Web control for ActiveX: The DataWindow Web control for ActiveX is a fully interactive DataWindow control for use with Internet Explorer. It implements all the features of the PowerBuilder DataWindow except rich text. Some PowerBuilder DataWindow methods that access the file system are not supported so that the Web control will be safely scriptable in a web page.
• Included with the DataWindow Web control is the DataWindow Transaction Object control for making database connections that can be shared by several DataWindow Web controls. The Web control makes database connections using JDBC.
• HTML DataWindow: The HTML DataWindow is a thin-client DataWindow implementation for web applications that provides most of the data manipulation, presentation, and scripting capabilities of the PowerBuilder DataWindow without requiring any PowerBuilder DLLs on the client. PowerBuilder also generates script to apply DataWindow changes back to the database. You may need to use a PB application server/ PowerDynamo & Jaguar CTS combination to take advantage of this feature.
• Colorful buttons: Unlike the CommandButton in the Window/user object painter, you can specify different background and foreground colors to the button object in the DataWindow. Please note that, even though PowerBuilder generates the correct style for HTML, some browsers like Netscape do not support colors to buttons and show them as a regular form button. Internet Explorer supports this feature.
• Database Painter
• All database-related tasks have been consolidated into a single painter.
• You can import and export database profiles which is a big relief to the programmer. It is also good for deployment.
• All database utilities are listed in the Database painter and you can add more if available. The ODBC administration utility is enhanced and you can to define ODBC entries at various levels, i.e., user level, system level, etc.
• New JDS, JDM JDBC, OLE DB and Sybase SYJ database interface
• Sybase SYC and DIR database interfaces are enhanced.
• Application Painter
• The Application painter's focus is now the Application object and its scripts. You no longer use the Application painter to create a new application, change applications, or modify the application's library search path. You use the Select Application and Library List dialog boxes that you access from new buttons in the Powerbar. Because the Application painter is an environment for editing a non-visual object of type application, it looks a lot like the User Object painter when you are editing a non-visual object.
• Library Painter
• It now has Windows Explorer interface with the ability to set any directory as the root directory in the left panel and they should have done this a long time before. No matter which library you are exploring currently, you can display the current library (the library that has the current application object) by clicking 'View/Current Library' menu option. One more feature developer community is looking for is, developer should be able to rename an object from the Library painter similar to the Windows Explorer, otherwise, we need open it in the painter to save it with new name.
• Menu Painter
• WYSIWYG Menu view: Displays the menu as users will see it and use it in your application (with the exception of invisible menu items that do display). The Tree Menu view can display all the menu items at the same time.
• Debugging
• When you are building a PowerBuilder custom class user object as a Jaguar CTS component, you can use the PowerBuilder debugger to debug the Jaguar component. You can debug the component whether you use the live editing feature in the User Object painter or the Project painter to deploy the component to the Jaguar server.
• Project Painter
• More component generators are available.
• Script Painter
• AutoScript feature prompts you with possible completions for the statement you are typing and you can configure which variables/objects participate in this feature and also when it should prompt.
• Functions/Event declaration, scripting, instance/ shared/ global variable declaration windows are consolidated into the script painter.
• Double clicking on the existing system function will directly take you to the script editor, which will override the system function. Interface to display ancestor script is also revamped.
• Now, you can run the application when you are in the script painter as long as you save the script.
• Window Painter
• Support for GIF or JPEG images in all controls that support bitmaps. Picture and PictureButton controls also support animated GIF images.
• New StaticHyperLink and PictureHyperLink controls and Vertical & Horizontal Trackbar, Progressbar controls
• You can even place non-visual objects in the window when you are in the window painter and write script to them. For example, you can place DataStore in the window and write script to its RetrieveRow event. In previous versions, to achieve the same, you need to create a user object by inheriting from the DataStore, write the script and use it in the scripting.
• One more feature that you will love is, you can select multiple controls and set the common properties one time and those properties are set for all those selected controls, which will save you hours of tedious work.
• New Properties
• ListView control: Checkboxes, FullRowSelect, Gridlines, HeaderDragDrop, OneClickActivate, TwoClickActivate, TrackSelect, UnderlineHot, UnderlineCold
• StaticText control: DisabledLook
• TreeView control: Checkboxes, FullRowSelect, SingleExpand, Tooltips, TrackSelect
• Window: ClientEdge, ContextHelp, PaletteWindow
• AcitveX & OLE
• ActiveX document support: The PowerBuilder OLE control can be used as an ActiveX document container as well as a container for traditional linked and embedded objects.
• Using a CLSID to connect to objects: The functions you use to connect to ActiveX servers accept a class ID (CLSID) as a parameter as an alternative to a programmatic identifier (ProgID) so that you can connect to servers that do not have a ProgID. All ActiveX servers are required to have a CLSID.
• Window, Menu and User Object Painters
• If you creating a descendent object or placing a user object in a window/user object, the Properties sheet displays any public/protected instance variables declared at the user object/ ancestor object. If those instance variables are initialized at declaration time, they will appear as default values in the Properties sheet. You can set the initial values to them right from the Properties sheet. These variables also include CONSTANTS, even though changing CONSTANTS will do nothing (it neither retain those values not display error when you try to change them).

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