Latest News from PowerBuilder Journal

Whither Windows?

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:45:00 EDT

One of the questions that I’ve been pondering lately is what will become of Windows. Based on the buzz about BYOD (bring your own device), tablets and the like, and the less-than-stellar reception of Windows 8 and Surface (Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet), you’d think that Windows was on its last legs. Combine this with the “death of the PC” hype, and things look bleak. They would look particularly bleak for PowerBuilder developers for two reasons. First, the PowerBuilder IDE is only available for the Windows platform. There were versions available for the Mac and UNIX at one point, and I used both, but they never generated enough sales to warrant the amount of support required to maintain them. Second, PowerBuilder essentially generates targets that – for the most part - only run on Windows devices. The Win32, .NET Windows Forms, .NET Assembly targets in PowerBuilder Classic and the WPF, PB Assembly, .NET Assembly targets in PowerBuilder.NET are all designed to run on Windows clients. The .NET Web Service in PowerBuilder Classic and the WCF Service in PowerBuilder.NET can be called from any client, but have to be deployed to a server running Windows. The .NET Web Forms Application target in PowerBuilder Classic not only has to be deployed to a server running Windows, but it’s dependence on Internet Explorer on the client restricts it to use from Windows clients as well. The Application Server Component target in PowerBuilder Classic deploys to a Java Application Server, but requires that the PowerBuilder Application Server Plug-in be installed on that app server. The most recent release of that product (version 1.1 released in Sept of 2008) is only available for the Windows platform. And finally, the EAServer Component target in PowerBuilder Classic deploys to EAServer, which does run on non-Windows platforms (i.e., Linux, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and HP-UX Itanium). However, the most recent version of that product (version 6.3.1 released in November of 2010) only provides support through the PowerBuilder 12.0 VM. Not sure what that means for PowerBuilder Classic 12.5 users.

Come on in, the Forums Are Fine…

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:00:00 EDT

What forums you may ask; the Sybase NNTP forums? No, those are going away. Not on the schedule that was originally proposed (December 1 of 2012), but they will go away soon. Replacing them are the online discussion forums in the PowerBuilder Development Center (PDC), part of the SAP Community Network (SCN). Never fear though, the information on the Sybase NNTP forums aren't going away; a searchable archive of the messages will be available. If you've been using PowerBuilder for a long period of time, then you'll know we've gone through a similar transition before. We started in one section of a Windows Developers section in CompuServe. In 1993, PowerSoft was moved to their own separate section in CompuServe for support of all their products. By 1997 though, the Internet had come of age and the decision was made to officially move the forums from CompuServe onto a Sybase-hosted NNTP server. Similar to this move, an archive was made available of the messages and files that had been available on the CompuServe forums. However, I was amazed at how quickly that archived information became irrelevant.

A Look at Appeon Mobile

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:15:00 EDT

I am here to tell you it’s true. You can write iPad applications in PowerBuilder. I’m sure that you are waiting for the other shoe to drop but ladies and gentlemen, there is no other shoe. It is simply the truth. You can write iPad applications in PowerBuilder. Those of you who have iPads, have you ever seen an MDI application running on an iPad? No? Neither had I. That is until I took a PowerBuilder application and, using Appeon, deployed to my iPad and ran the app. I guess the only real catch is that the product is in Beta test and won’t be available to the general public until spring 2013. Still, it’s going to be well worth the wait.

Gradients, Not Glitz: Methods to Modernize PowerBuilder User Experiences

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:45:00 EDT

Surprisingly few applications have used DataWindow gradients since they were introduced in PowerBuilder 10.5. Modern applications frequently have controls with gradients. They can give a fresh look to an old application. Where developers used solid colors to highlight columns, gradients add nuance, flair and more. This article will show practical methods and guidelines for applying gradients to convey meaning, grouping, and give visual focus. It begins by introducing the basics of gradient properties. The discussion advances to many types of subtle effects for general visual interest. Examples are "soft spots" or "title bar shades," or focus indicators for rows and columns. Gradients can be used in detail and group bands and framing free form objects inside – or instead of – group boxes. Readers will see distinctive DataWindow controls like edits, checkboxes and radio buttons. Property expressions can also create data-driven effects to convey meaning in a variety of cases. Gradients can do a lot for your application when users have been getting less. They provide an extra channel to convey focus, grouping, depth and distinction in subtle and appealing ways (see Figure 1).

The PostOpen Event – Why It Is So Important

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:00:00 EST

Normally I try to write applications on the DataWindow or Appeon but every now and then I get a question that makes me sit back and say, “Huh?” In this case the question concerns the PostOpen event. I’ve seen that event named different things: ue_post_open, postOpen, post_open, ue_postOpen, etc. It has, as far as I can see, always had post and open in the name of the event. Further, just about every framework that I’ve ever seen has had that event in the base window. The question that I was asked was, “Why is that event there?” The programmer wanted to know why there was code in the post open and why was it not just put at the end of the open event? At first I was really confused by the question. It was like he was asking me why do we have arrays? I just couldn’t imagine not knowing the answer.

The PowerBuilder .NET IDE

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:30:00 EST

For the past year plus I've been spending a lot of time working with a web-based BI tool (the development is actually done in a plug-in to Eclipse, but the end users access the results through a browser). The tool reminds me a lot of the DataWindow. You create objects that can either map directly to a database table or are based on textual SQL. Those objects are then combined into a composite object that the user can access to do ad-hoc queries without having to know how the underlying tables are related. The data connection is abstracted from the data access layer, and the reports it generates have an extensive event model that can be coded to respond to a wide variety of system events and user interactions. That being said, it also reminds me of PowerBuilder and the DataWindow because as powerful as it is, it can also be extremely frustrating to work with. It rewrites the SQL in the composite objects, and sometimes it undoes a rather complicated operation that I didn't need rewritten. At that point I'm left trying to find a way to isolate my complicated operation so that the tool doesn't try to rewrite it for me.

A Pragmatic Approach to Enterprise Architecture

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:00:00 EST

Managing complexity is difficult in any growing business. As companies innovate, add new business lines, expand their global reach, cater to increased volume, or adopt new regulatory rules, processes proliferate and the discipline surrounding them goes out of the window. Moreover, the IT that supports these processes becomes more entangled as aging legacy applications jostle with new applications to support the needs of the business. Over time the technology that support this business unravels, causing the environment to suffer from instability and poor performance and become difficult to change and maintain. In short, it lowers business efficiency and effectiveness. A sound Enterprise Architecture (EA) approach is required to ensure that both the business and technology are well aligned and will help restore order to this landscape. An Enterprise Architecture is a description of the goals of a company, how these goals are realized by business processes, and how these business processes can be better served through technology. EA is about finding opportunities to use technology to add business value.

Elegant Programming | Part 4

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:45:00 EST

A given object should assume as little as possible about the structure or properties of anything else (including its subcomponents). In simpler words: if you want to get data from an object, referenced by a variable, then use a public function declared in the referenced object itself, but not variables and functions of its nested object(s). The law is dictated by real life. Imagine you are paying in a store, and the cashier asks you to give your credit card. You take your wallet from your pocket, take the card from the wallet and hand it to the cashier. Nothing strange or unusual.

Elegant Programming: Managing Functions | Part 3

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 14:00:00 EST

Create a separate function for each logical sub-task, i.e., divide one long program into a number of short subprograms. The idea is named “Separation of concerns.” Do that not only if the code will be re-used (i.e., called from more than one place) but even if it will only be called once. It's not a problem to have a lot of functions belonging to one task or business flow, even tens – a developer can always bring into focus only one of them. On the other hand, it's very difficult to understand how one intricate toilet-paper-long script works. Adherence to this rule will produce simple code even if the whole system is extremely complex, like software for a space ship or for brain surgy. The following tips will help you write code in a simple manner: Ideally a function should be no longer than one screen (not including the header comments). Two screens are still acceptable, but three screens already bring up the issue of incorrect functions organization unless the function performs a long "black work" that cannot (or should not) be broken into pieces, for example, processing a big number of fields gotten from an external service, when each field is processed in a few lines. The next acceptable advice was found by me in a programming book: "functions should contain up to approximately 100 lines of code not including comments."

Web Browser Version of the PowerBuilder CD Player Released

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:30:00 EST

This release is written in PowerBuilder 12.1 (build 6518 - GA) and encompasses some interesting features that you can coax out of the Windows operating system. Normally, the application can be deployed as a Win32, Winform or WPF (using PB.Net) and allows the user to control music from any CD/DVD player attached to their PC. The amazing part of this story though is use of the Appeon Web product and it's ability to be able to translate the PowerScript based application into pure XML, HTML and jScript - thus totally removing the PBVM run-time dependency. Then, being able to reproduce verbatim the application GUI inside the web browser while the Appeon AJAX plugin allows any web application the absolute necessary O/S control to accomplish its task!

Automating Your DataWindow

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:15:00 EST

Every programmer knows about the IF command. It's pretty much a fundamental part of the syntax of every computer language that has ever existed. I don't need to explain how it works. The DataWindow can't use the IF command though. It does, however, support an IF function. In its simplest form this means that if the expression evaluates to TRUE, then whatever statement you supply for the TRUE part is executed. If not then the FALSE part is. Let's begin with a simple example. Let's create a DataWindow that will show employee information.

PBTV - January 2013

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:05:00 EST

Upcoming webinars on PowerBuilderTV Ready to go mobile? With the arrival of Appeon Mobile, you can now leverage your PowerBuilder skills to build complete apps for a full range of mobile devices, from smartphones to iPads to full-fledged Tablet PCs. Mobile application development has never been easier or faster. Creating an engaging user experience, however, requires more than simply re-deploying your existing code for new target platforms.

Appeon Developer Configuration

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:00:00 EST

Have you ever used a datastore that ran without a problem while you were developing your application, but once you've compiled it stopped running? Let me tell you that's a difficult bug to fix. I remember it so well. I kept going back and forth. How in the world could the DataWindow work at design time yet not in the executable? I remember that I checked the return value of the datastore. I finally noticed that the datastore returned a -1. That's such a strange thing. The datastore returns the number of rows that were returned or a -1. The help files used to say that a -1 was in case of 'an error'. It goes into a lot more detail in version 12.5 but still falls somewhat short of giving you the whole answer.

Elegant Programming: Code Writing Style | Part 2

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 08:45:00 EST

Declare local variables in the beginning (on the top) of the function, before the first executable line. This will: Make it easier to detect all the variables used in the function and to follow them Keep as little stuff as possible in executable code fragments, where programmers should concentrate on business logic. The declaration of a local variable is not an executable command in PowerBuilder. The memory is allocated on the stack exactly at the moment when the function is called together with the parameters. It doesn’t make sense to declare a variable inside an “if” construction hoping to improve performance – the declaration will occur anyway.

Distributing Database Modification Scripts to DBAs

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 12:00:00 EST

I recently read Berndt Hamboeck’s article, ‘NetStart’ Your PowerBuilder Application after being kindly pointed to it by Bruce Armstrong. It made perfect sense to me to be able to distribute .pbd patches to client machines by having the client-application automatically install them from the application’s database. In the lead-up in Berndt’s article, he touched on a similar problem – the difficulties of distributing database modification scripts to DBAs prior to the installation of a new executable. In this respect, I had coded functionality for the application I develop to process database modifications from within the application without the need for the DBA’s intervention. I tentatively mentioned this to Bruce. (I say ‘tentatively’ because I’m a relatively inexperienced programmer). He asked me to write this article.

Elegant Programming: The Art of Naming (Part 1)

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 07:45:00 EST

Give all entities mentioned in the code (DB tables, DB tables’ fields, variables, classes, functions, etc.) meaningful, descriptive names that make the code easily understood. The names should be so self-explanatory that it eliminates the need for comments in most cases. Use the words per and by as often as possible – they really simplify a developer’s life. A variable’s name li_cows_per_farm is better than li_total_cows, and a function name uf_retrieve_city_by_country tells us more than uf_retrieve_city, especially if it doesn’t have parameters that supply the “by what” information. Don’t use abstract words like “actual” and “total’ in variables names as they will madden you, forcing to spend extra time trying to understand what is “actual,” what is “not actual” and which grouping level is “total” for. Is li_total_cows field total per barn? per farm? per village? per province? per country? per the Universe? If, for example, per farm, then how will you name the total per village? It’s also “total”! So, don’t write simply “total” – write total PER WHAT! Use only exact definitions that produce no (or minimum) questions, even if that results in longer variables names.

DataWindow Magic: Menu Security

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 11:00:00 EST

Security is a must for most corporate applications. This article will give you a starting point to designing and implementing your own. We will do it with a table that is added to the example database and implement it in ancestor code. The idea is that you should only have to add rows to a table to implement your security. The security table will provide a means to turn on and off controls and menu items as our inherited objects are constructed. Although I had several choices I decided to create a datastore that would return all of the specified item types for an application. If I was in a menu I could look for menus. If I was in a window I could look for windows.

Dancing Checkboxes

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 10:00:00 EST

Normally I write columns about the DataWindow or Appeon. This month though I ran into an interesting little logic problem and when I solved it I realized it was really a nice piece of code so, even though it is not in my normal genre I thought I’d share it. I was tasked with allowing the user to pick a combination of days of the week with these specifications. The user may select no more than three days prior to today. The user may select no more than three days in the future. The user may not have both prior and future dates in the same group If there are not three days in the past available in this week then the week “wraps.” That is to say, if the day is Monday then you only have Sunday as a past day in the week, but for our purposes Saturday and Friday would be considered past days of the same week. Repeat rule 4 for future days.

PowerBuilder Developer’s Conference

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 13:49:00 EDT

As you probably know, in lieu of a TechWave this year SAP hosted a separate PowerBuilder Developer’s Conference (PBDC) co-located with SAP TechEd 2012 in Las Vegas from October 21–25. There was a separate but co-located event last year as well, but that was an actual TechWave that represented all of the Sybase products. This year all of the other Sybase products were incorporated in SAP TechEd, so the only products covered during the PBDC was PowerBuilder. (Actually among the 30+ sessions, PowerDesigner and SQL Anywhere were mentioned in one session, there was a session on InfoMaker and there was one session on SQL Anywhere Tips and Techniques.) There were roughly 90+ people in attendance, compared to 600+ at the last TechWave. The registration area for TechEd was the standard conference registration booths. The registration area for the PBDC was a single skirted table. In that regard it gave it a bit more of a roadshow feel than a full-on conference. In other regards though, as I’ll cover later, it was a full-on conference event.

The Importance of the OSS Note

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EDT

One of the things I've been hearing (and experiencing) lately is that there are a lot of questions about how SAP IDM works. Sometimes it's a functionality question, sometimes it's an enhancement request, other times it's a bug report. Taking a look on the SAP IDM SDN forum, one can see several instances of all of these issues. However, some feel that the actual issues are never recognized by SAP. This leads to feelings of frustration and that IDM is too complicated.

Automating Formats and Edit Styles

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:45:00 EDT

Sybase I am convinced that PowerBuilder is poised for a mighty comeback. The fact is that still today PowerBuilder is by far the most productive development tool available. It eclipses all the rest. An experienced PowerBuilder programmer is demonstrably more productive and can finish tasks faster than C# or even VB.NET. So why is .NET used by more companies? Mine would just be a guess and in fact, the answer is irrelevant. I’m here to tell you that Sybase is making an obvious push to regain some of the ground that it lost. The programmer who positions himself as a PowerBuilder expert today will benefit tomorrow.

The Evolution of PowerBuilder .NET

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EDT

Somebody was asking in the Sybase newsgroups “should I make the commitment to PB.NET?” and wanted non-marketing types to respond. I started to respond in the forums, but the eventual length of the response and its applicability to many other people resulted in my responding here. What PowerBuilder has always been good at – its differentiating factor – is allowing developers to rapidly build Windows client applications that are open with respect to the data source they work with. You can use other tools to do Windows client applications (e.g., C#, C++, etc.), but the primary advantage that PowerBuilder offers is that it accelerates the development effort. My gut feeling is that I can be an order of magnitude more productive using PowerBuilder to develop a Windows client than any other tool.

SAP TechEd - PBDC

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:28:00 EDT

SAP has finally released a lust of the presentation sessions that will be appearing at the PBDC sub-conferenece within the main SAP TechEd Conference. Here is a list of of the major presentation titles that we will be seeing at the conference: Using .NET Assemblies with SAP Sybase PowerBuilder SAP Sybase PowerBuilder Techniques and Experiences in Industry — Manufacturing Execution Systems Creation and Consumption of Web Services with SAP Sybase PowerBuilder Techniques for Storing User-Created DataWindows and Graphics in the Database

Creating The Masters of the Mobile Enterprise

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:00:00 EDT

As a Mobile Evangelist I keep preaching that... Mobile is the new Enterprise and Mobile is Now! This is a phrase that most businesses should now have heard many times over the last year and a half, or they are already living it daily by enabling their mobile workforce. Also we hear daily the terms of Consumerisation, BYOD and MDM. These are the foundations of Mobile in the Enterprise and a starting point of solid governance policies and the management & security of devices (along with corporate data)... But beyond this, is the ultimate goal of mobilising corporate systems, that ultimately empower the Information Workers. This can only be achieved via innovative mobile apps identified by your Mobile Innovation Council (MIC), which is in turn headed by your Chief Mobility Officer (CMoO).

Power Building with Exceptions

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:15:00 EDT

To pass errors from functions outward, throw exceptions instead of returning an error code like -1. That’s implemented by filling the “Throws:” field in the function’s header (signature) with the class Exception or its descendant. When the exceptions mechanism is used, calls to functions look very simple. The tradition of returning a success/failure code come from ancient times when exception throwing mechanism didn’t exist yet in PowerBuilder, but there’s no need to use horses in the automobile era. We still check code returned by built-in PB functions, as well as in legacy application code, but be a modern person and write new code.

Advanced PowerBuilder for Professionals, Part I - Available August

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:00:00 EDT

eLearnIT LLC, global independent provider of SAP Sybase PowerBuilder developer eTraining, Seminars and Workshops, in cooperation with the International Sybase User Group (ISUG), a trade association representing more than eight thousand members in more than sixty countries around the globe, is pleased to announce the general availability of its Advanced PowerBuilder for Professionals eTraining series. eLearnIT’s courses use a modern web based, comprehensive, self-paced, rich media presentation format that is available 24/7 and includes text and audio descriptions, video demonstrations and hands-on lab exercises. This course was created by and is taught by Yakov Werde, one of the most experienced and respected PowerBuilder instructors worldwide. The lab exercises included support versions 12.0 and 12.5 Classic.

Professional DataWindow Sorting

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EDT

In my last article we explored what I call Advanced DataWindow Sorting. We covered everything that we need for the DataWindow. In this article we are going to polish what we did last month and make it look professional. The main area of concern is our sort selector window as seen in Figure 1. It does the job. It’s just amateurish and doesn’t provide the full flexibility that we really need. You may recall that the text of the sortable column is specified in the tag property of the column in the DataWindow. (huh?) We open the sort selector window with a parameter, something like this: openWithParm(w_dw_sort, dw_1) We then pass a DataWindow to the sort selector window. The first thing that window does is save the DataWindow to an instance variable that can be referenced from anywhere in the window. Then in the post_open event it loops through all the columns in the DataWindow that was provided and it looks for tag properties. If it finds one, it adds it to the ‘sortable’ list.

PowerBuilder on the iPad?

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:00:00 EDT

As you may have noticed, a number of media sources are writing about the overall progression of iOS device sales and of the iPad in particular. The latter’s sales have developed to the point where their presence in businesses is becoming indispensable (see Looking into Enterprise iOS by Ian Thain) This article is intended for PowerBuilder users who are considering developing iPad applications. We will try to determine to what point this device has become a must-have, by looking at recent sales and market penetration figures in the professional world. Then, we will discuss development tools and solutions that are adapted to PowerBuilder projects.

PowerBuilder 15 Classic Sneak Preview

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 EDT

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).

What PowerBuilder Users Are Planning for Mobile Development

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:30:00 EDT

The first sets of results are in for the Mobile Development Survey. After only a few weeks of release, there have been hundreds of responses from PowerBuilder users. Here’s a little sneak peek at some of the results we’ve compiled so far: The eternal battle between Android and Apple-iOS continues, so which platforms are a must for organizations developing with PowerBuilder? Eighty-seven percent are looking to use Android, with Apple not far behind at 77%. It’s no surprise that the two OS industry leaders are strongly represented in the survey. However, Windows Phone 7, representing only 1.5% of today’s smartphone market sales, has taken a surprising third place. This is in line with the predictions of certain analysts, who see a successful return of Microsoft on the OS mobile market. Only time will tell if these predictions will come true…

What Ever Happened to ‘Device Convergence’?

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EDT

I’m sitting here at yet another user group meeting… perhaps you’ve seen me at one or at TechWave, or perhaps you have seen pictures of me at them on Facebook. I’ve got a laptop propped open where I’m usually working on some pet sample code project. Next to it is my iPad in its case/stand with an external keyboard where I’m taking notes on the event for my WordPress blog and perhaps sending out Twitter updates. Next to that is my Android smartphone so I can text message, go on Facebook, and take still photos of the event. And somewhere in the general vicinity is the Panasonic Lumix camera I’m using to record video of the event in case I need to refer to it later to clarify some of the notes I’m taking on the iPad. Finally, if I’m lucky, I’ve got a multi-outlet strip running to a nearby outlet so I can keep all these devices powered up.

SAP Buys US Mobile Platform House Syclo

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EDT

German giant SAP said Tuesday, after getting back from the long weekend, that it’s going to buy privately held Chicago-based Syclo, a long-established company with a mobile enterprise application platform called Agentry and packaged ERP and CRM apps. Terms weren’t disclosed. The deal should close this quarter. Syclo has expertise in building applications for utilities, oil & gas, life sciences and manufacturing and counts 600 customers around the world. SAP said the acquisition “adds momentum to our already powerful mobile portfolio, advancing our vision and leadership while accelerating our mobile apps.” And where there are mobile apps, there’s a cloud. SAP is on the trail of seeing €20 in total annual revenues by 2015 versus €14.2 billion last year tickled by mobile solutions.

Perhaps I Haven’t Made Myself Clear...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

I’ve been discussing HTML5 for some time now. In July of 2010, I mentioned that I wasn’t particularly concerned about PowerBuilder supporting HTML5 in the initial PowerBuilder.NET release (12.5) because: “HTML5 is largely still in its infancy, and there appears to be too much opportunity for it to fragment as previous HTML standards have done.” [1] In December of 2010 I devoted an entire editorial to HTML5 [2], noting that: “I have some basic concerns that make me reluctant to recommend using HTML5 as the basis for any line of business application development in the near future.”

QweryBuilder Tips and Tricks

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:00:00 EDT

QweryBuilder contains some very neat features. We try our best to ensure that most functionality is well exposed and intuitive to find; In some cases this is hard to do. Below are a few that we think you will find useful. Use the Ctrl-D keyboard shortcut to duplicate the current line. If text is selected, the selected text will be duplicated. Use the Ctrl-T keyboard shortcut to swap the current Werysoft Inc.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04726066291902301395noreply@blogger.com0

TechWave into TechEd Does Go!!!

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

I just received an interesting piece of information today from the Events team. Let me share it with you... For 2012, our traditional TechWave content will be incorporated into the SAP TechEd conference, taking place October 15-19 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. We will continue to deliver targeted training on Sybase products as you would expect, plus offer attendees access to SAP TechEd keynote sessions, exhibits, special event and other networking functions.

Five Points When Building the Business Case for Mobile Enterprise Apps

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:45:00 EDT

Today I thought I would put together five steps and five points within to producing 5-Star Mobile Apps. Here is #1 Five points when Building the Business Case for Mobile Enterprise Apps. 1. Create a Visionary Plan for more mobile Apps and know how they will aid and shape your enterprise. 2. Create an ADS (Application Definition Statement) for each App, specifying purpose and intended audience. 3. Create a Budget for devices, if CYOD and include the next two steps. Also include your estimated ROI. 4. Create a plan for a Device Management & Security Infrastructure - Use a leading MDM such as Afaria. 5. Create a plan for an App Dev Team using a future proof Development Platform - Use a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP), such as SUP.

The PowerBuilder DataWindow as an Image Thumbnail Display Control

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:30:00 EDT

While external controls exist for viewing image thumbnails, there can be the need to view images as thumbnails within the context of other data within a multi-row list, treeview or report. This can be easily done with a PowerBuilder DataWindow object. In this case a treeview DataWindow (see Figure 1) was needed to display multiple images as thumbnails that related to the data presented in each row. Required functionalities include making the images selectable, displaying data for each thumbnail, such as the name of the file, and to keep the appearance orderly by having the images appear the same height in a row. I will present the techniques used to create thumbnail images in DataWindows. The methods presented assume that the images are stored as files in some folder that’s accessible by the application. It’s also assumed that the image types are any of the standard image types that are recognized by PowerBuilder: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .wmf, and .png. The image files are not converted in any way but are displayed in a thumbnail size.

PowerBuilder Mobile

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:39:00 EDT

Are you a PowerBuilder developer and is your organization considering developing Mobile applications? Then your help is needed! Who is going mobile? Discover what PowerBuilder Projects are working on. Did you know that 70 million tablets were sold this year? By 2015, it is predicted tablet sales will surpass PC sales! A lot of PowerBuilder projects are preparing for this evolution ... Are you?

Data Connection and Usage, the Life Blood of Mobility

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:00:00 EDT

Now that Mobility is part of our lives, we are all hooked on our Smartphone or Tablet device and take them everywhere we go, but we need to be aware of something that we almost take for granted… Data Connection & Usage! Especially if we are going abroad and hit the tricky subject of Data Roaming, which can become a very expensive situation personally and corporately. Mobile devices give us access to fantastic content that can be delivered and displayed to our Converged Mobile Devices (CMD's). In the past the Cellular Providers made their money on calls and SMS, but for a while now their new cash cow is data and we are hooked!

User Group Malaise?

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EDT

Read an interesting article about the .NET Developer Association user group in Redmond, Washington. You would think that the user group in Microsoft’s backyard (the meetings are held at Microsoft’s offices) wouldn’t have any problems lining up guest speakers and drawing a crowd. Well, it looks like they do because they’ve had to cancel several recent meetings and have proposed taking a six-month break to try to determine how to revitalize the group.[1] It had me wondering why such a group would have difficulty holding meetings. Of course, the issue may be specific to that particular group. I don’t know enough about the group to judge that. However, assuming that is not the case, the most likely causes would either be (a) a malaise setting in for .NET groups in particular or (b) a lack of interest in software developer tool user group meetings in general. It wouldn’t seem to be an issue with the demand for .NET developers. According to data from indeed.com, it doesn’t look like the demand for them (at least of the C# variety) is diminishing.[2]

Appeon Version 6.5.1 Released!

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:22:00 EDT

New Supported PowerBuilder Features Support the encoding argument for DataWindow SaveAs function and File functions. Support CSV file type for ImportFile function. Support more Section 508 properties: AccessibleName, AccessibleDescription, & AccessibleRole properties of PB controls Inet object supports https address (this feature is available in Appeon only, not in PB)

Tablets Have Come of Age

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:30:00 EDT

This week I attended a Mobile Monday event sponsored by Barnes & Nobile (B & N) which discussed Tablet Computing and promoted their Nook Developer program. The Chair for the meeting was Marek Pawlowski, Founder and Organiser MEX @marekpawlowski and the Panel consisted of Claudio Romanini - Director, Developer Relations, Barnes & Noble (B&N), Stuart Dredge - Freelance Journalist @stuartdredge, Hesham Al-Jehani - Product Manager, Mobile , Comscore and Ben Scott Robinson- creative director, We Love Mobile @bscr. This article is a combination of notes from the meeting and my thoughts.

Why Your Wireless Expert Could Be Your Mobility Team MVP

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:00:00 EDT

It may be an unusual angle, but your Enterprise IP Wireless Expert may be your best ally around when it comes to implementing your Mobile Device Security Strategies. The reason why I think this is that all of smartphone and tablet devices support wireless connectivity, and most data plans provide incentives for users to access the web via IP connectivity rather than the carrier’s network. Hopefully this makes sense as it reduces airtime charges for users, often with little or no trade-off in performance and flexibility and relieves congestion in the carrier voice network. So it's a Win-Win situaton, right? Well... what users (and some mobility professionals) might overlook, however, is that a lot of the networks over which Enterprise Mobile Devices might connect to the web are completely unsecured, and that could be very dangerous.

A Snap-In App Framework Using Dynamic PowerBuilder Assemblies (Part 2)

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:45:00 EDT

This two-part series examines and contrasts PowerBuilder .NET 12.5.1’s new dynamic assembly feature with corresponding dynamic library functionality in PowerBuilder Classic. The discourse is presented in the context of a simplified yet practical use case. Part 1 presented the use case, reviewed pertinent PowerBuilder Classic dynamic APIs and presented a Classic PBD implementation. Part 2 introduces PowerBuilder .NET 12.5.1’s Dynamic Assembly feature, reveals relevant PowerBuilder .NET generated assembly internals, and presents a PowerBuilder .NET use case implementation. Along the way it explores PowerBuilder assembly internals. My initial attack plan when exploring version 12.5.1’s dynamic assembly function capabilities was to envision a use case where library functions are used to reflect on an assembly to discover its contents and then extract and instantiate class definitions. I am so used to writing dynamic Classic PowerScript code using Library functions to get lists of objects in a PBD and dynamically creating them that I naively assumed that the .NET Library methods were equivalent to their Classic counterparts. Wrong! As you’ll soon see, my journey took me spelunking deep into the cavities of PowerBuilder .NET assemblies. Lucky for me I got the treasure at the bottom of the cave and was able find my way back out. Read on!

SAP Executive Interview with Raj Nathan

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:15:00 EDT

At Mobile World Congress last week in Barcelona, I had the great fortune to interview...Raj Nathan, EVP and CMO, Sybase, an SAP company. As Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Worldwide Marketing and Business Solutions Operations, Dr. Raj Nathan is responsible for all marketing initiatives for Sybase and its subsidiaries, Sybase iAnywhere and Sybase 365. In this role, Dr. Nathan leads a global marketing organization setting Sybase's technology direction and go-to-market initiatives. Under his leadership, Sybase continues to be recognized for visionary technology that meets the direct needs of customers and partners. Dr. Nathan’s work experience has taken him around the globe, and has run the gamut from hardware to software, and from large companies to small including Unisys and Siemens Pyramid. Raj earned his doctorate and master’s degree from Iowa State University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras, in India.

The Importance of Future Proofing Mobility

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:00:00 EDT

I have talked a lot about the need to Mobilize Existing Business Systems and Processes in an innovative and strategic way and at the heart of this for Mobile App development is the Mobile Enterprise Application Platform or MEAP. This is important because mobile technology is evolving so rapidly. Companies need to be in position to take advantages of new innovations as they come to market. The world is increasingly unforgiving of those who fail to keep up, as I have said before... Don't be left in the Starting Blocks! There is a lot of competitive advantage in Mobility and you need to invest in your vision to reap the reward! You need to also build a Business Mobility Infrastructure that is capable of accommodating new mobile technologies. You might say, but with all the advances that we’ve seen in the past couple of years, with so many new models of smartphones, and now tablets, what more can there really be? How many ways can device manufactures package a Converged Mobile Device (CMD - I'm bundling both smartphone and tablets here)? You're probably asking...Isn’t all this mobility frenzy going to settle down?

Rapid Deployment Solutions for Mobile

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:00:00 EST

At Mobile World Congress last week in Barcelona, I had the great fortune to interview... Hari Subramanyam, Global Rollout Manager, RDS Mobile Solutions Assembly & Packaging, SAP. In this interview I find out... What SAP offers for customers to get started with mobile solutions. What is currently available today. What rapid deployment solutions are being planned for the future

Appeon Mobile: First-Ever Mobility Solution for the PowerBuilder Community

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 05:30:00 EST

Novalys SAS announced on March 7, 2012 that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Appeon Corporation to distribute the first-ever mobility solution for the PowerBuilder community. Leveraging Appeon’s over a decade of experience in PowerBuilder web deployment and its core technology platform, Appeon is developing a mobile deployment solution for PowerBuilder – Appeon Mobile. Appeon Mobile will offer the simplest, fastest, and lowest-cost mobile development option for the PowerBuilder developer community. Under the agreement, Novalys will market, sell, and support Appeon Mobile worldwide.

Novalys and Appeon Partner to Distribute Appeon Mobile Worldwide

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:00:00 EST

Novalys SAS announced on Wednesday it has entered into a strategic partnership with Appeon Corporation to distribute the first-ever mobility solution for the Sybase PowerBuilder community. Leveraging Appeon’s decade of experience in PowerBuilder deployment and its core technology platform, Appeon will develop a mobile deployment solution for PowerBuilder – Appeon Mobile. Appeon Mobile will offer the simplest, fastest, and lowest-cost mobile development option for the PowerBuilder developer community. Under the agreement, Novalys will market, sell, and support Appeon Mobile worldwide. In response to growing demand from the PowerBuilder community for mobility, Appeon Mobile will enable developers to rapidly build mobile applications exclusively with the Sybase PowerBuilder and using only existing programming skills. This empowers developers to leverage existing investments in PowerBuilder and the unbeatable productivity that PowerBuilder offers. For example, line-of-business mobile applications can be built in just weeks instead of months. Moreover, it will no longer be necessary to use different tools, programming skills, and build multiple projects for each platform, such as Objective-C for iOS and Java for Android.

SAP and Samsung Partnership

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:55:16 EST

At Mobile World Congress last week in Barcelona, I had the great fortune to interview Oliver Bussmann, CIO at SAP and BC Cho, Head of Global Enterprise Business Team, Mobile Communications - Samsung Electronics. In this interview I find out... What Oliver Bussmann thought the main trends were at this years MWC? What was the news about Samsung and SAP?