Frederick Koh

In my previous article for PowerBuilder Developer's Journal (Vol. 18 issue 8), I gave a sneak preview of some of the things we were working on for PB15 Classic. This is a closer look at one of them - Tabs and Docking in MDI Windows. Recall that in the article we mentioned adding two new WindowType values - mdidock! and mdidockhelp! - to the window object. Like values mdi! and mdihelp!, respectively, they allow child windows (sheets) to be opened with the OpenSheet functions. But these sheets will behave differently: they can dock, float and be tabbed like the windows you see in our PB.NET IDE. Your sheets will open docked by default (we will see how to control this later in the article). Once opened, they can be moved, docked in much the same way you can with the PB.NET IDE window. The sheets can be in one of four states: Tabbed Document: In PB.NET IDE, script edit... (more)

New DataWindow Features in PowerBuilder 11.5

In PowerBuilder 11.5 we introduce features that allow you to easily give your existing DataWindows a new look and feel. New properties are added to columns and controls to allow you to add tooltips. You no longer have to settle for single-colored backgrounds. We have introduced properties to control color gradients and translucency for the background of columns, and most controls and bands. For the DataWindow background, in addition to color gradients, you can use bitmaps as wallpaper, giving you control over how the image is tiled. Since these new properties are DataWindow prope... (more)

New Features for the Win32 Target in PB12.5

With all the attention in PB12 focused on .NET and WPF, some of you may be wondering about the future of Win32 targets in what is now being called PB Classic. Those hoping to still continue to work with Win32 targets in PB Classic can rest assured, PB Classic is not going away and we are backing that statement up with the features we are going to introduce in PB12.5. Controls in DataWindow and Outside Converging in Capabilities In this major release you are going to find two long-asked-for features finally implemented: Autowidth for the Grid DataWindow Tab order, enabled, and focus... (more)

After PowerBuilder 12.5 Classic – Sneak Preview

By the time you are reading this, PB12.5 will have been released and work on PB15 well under way. A lot of exciting things have gone into the .NET version of PB but we still get requests for features to go into the Classic version of the product. Even though there was a lull in activity in PB12 Classic, we are back again in 12.5 - and we are not stopping. You will probably have seen Dave Fish's webcasts on plans for PB15 (his disclaimers apply here as well) and are hungry for details - I hope to address that in this article. PB has been around a long time and has accumulated many ... (more)

PowerBuilder Cover Story — The DataWindow in PowerBuilder 11 Web Form Targets

PowerBuilder 11 introduces the WebForms target, which lets you transform an existing PowerBuilder application into a Web application with relative ease. While the deployed application will be remarkably faithful to the original client/server deployment in terms of application behavior, the degree of faithfulness is limited by the fact that your application is running as a Web application. The PowerBuilder component where this poses the greatest challenge is the DataWindow. The aim of this article is to point out where the transformed application will differ in terms of latency, ... (more)