We've all heard the expression 'think outside the box.' We've also been told that our computers are 'thinking machines.' So, when Sybase introduced the latest version of PowerDesigner, I saw software that allowed my computer to do exactly that.

I just finished a Web application for my son's Boy Scout troop. The application was designed to track a scout's progress from Cub to Eagle Scout. One of the leaders asked if the information could be downloaded to a mobile device.

In my previous article (PBDJ, Vol. 8, issue 2), I demonstrated the Object Name feature of the debug popup menu. The popup menu is a developer's tool invoked by holding down a magic key as you right-click a window or control. The initial and most useful debug menu item is Object Name, which you can use to identify any object in your PowerBuilder application as you run the application. Selecting Object Name as you right-click a DataWindow produces output like that shown in Figure 1.

Do you ever wonder, after making a really cool JSP, PowerDynamo, or ASP page, just how much of a resource load will result? How many concurrent calls will max out the CPU on the servers? Wouldn't it be great if you could find out before the QA people start bashing on it? Wouldn't it be nice to avoid ordering a pizza and staying until the page is fixed?

Why use DHTML for the tab control when there's a Java tab control available? The answer is that DHTML is much lighter, and we can minimize the 'heaviness' of the page by using it.

I work in a consulting group for iAnywhere Solutions that provides application integration solutions. One successful solution that I'd like to share is the TimeTracker application for SAP R/3.

With the buzz surrounding e-business these days, distributed applications are taking center stage. As EAServer developers, we have a powerful development platform and a broad palette of choices when it comes to the types of components we implement. This flexibility can become crucial when integrating new development with current systems.

In our previous article in PBDJ (Vol. 8, issue 1), we discussed the benefits of dual-architecture frameworks (DAF). Using our own Hepek DAF we outlined what DAFs should be able to do. In this issue we'll show you how to create a ShareData service that works under both client/server and n-tier architectures.

How does your organization manage its PowerBuilder source? Your application has several PBLs containing several hundred objects. Do you use the native PowerBuilder check-in/checkout? Do you employ a 'real' revision control system, such as Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe?

The ability to deploy applications on the Internet or intranet has become essential for application development, especially when developing new applications with Internet/J2EE-compatible tools. For PB developers this meant that instead of a single high-level integrated environment, they had to use low-level tools and a multitude of languages and technologies, and write more code while delivering less functionality. The problem became even more apparent when they needed to transfer existing applications to the Web.

So you want to learn Java! Over the past year PowerBuilder Developer's Journal has published many great articles about Java. Most of them focused on how to take your existing PowerBuilder skills and use them to learn Java. If you're an experienced PowerBuilder programmer who's trying to learn Java - you're not alone.

Over the years we've adopted techniques that help us develop our PowerBuilder applications faster and with fewer bugs. This article describes my favorite bag of tricks, the pop-up debug menu (see Figure 1).

I'm a huge fan of Marvel Comics. The subtitle of this article, as well as that of its first part, 'The DataWindow Superhero' (PBDJ, Vol. 8, issue 1), shows my fantastic immaturity toward the concept of superheroes. I want it known that it's the Marvel Comics' characters, specifically ThunderStrike and the X-Men entourage, that did this to me.

Sybase announced that market research firm GartnerGroup had rated the company a leading visionary in the enterprise portal market. The portal product market report detailed several vendors that are jockeying for the market-leadership position in this relatively new market.

One of the major improvements that came when PB5 was released was the ability to encapsulate expressions within DataWindows. To understand a DataWindow and work with its expressions, you need to know the difference between a DataWindow control, a DataWindow object, and now a DWObject.

In the November issue of PBDJ(Vol. 7, issue 11) I focused on the 'out-of-the-box' PFC caching service. I frequently use this service to hold information in memory rather than perform an extra database retrieve.

What's the word for a set of objects: DataWindows, DataStores, or DataWindowChilds? If there is a word, I don't know it. Objects don't have any relationship in the PowerBuilder object hierarchy, so that doesn't help.Let's call them DataObjects...oops, that's taken! Lacking any other word, let's stipulate that the term DataWidgets refers to these various DataWindow-ish types.

With the recent fuel shortage we've seen a price increase here in the U.S. as well as around the world. In addition, we have different types of fuel with different price tags. The price of diesel fuel, which is the cheapest, didn't increase as much as premium did. Every time I go to the gas station with my V-8 gas sucker, which uses premium, I wish I could pump diesel instead. Well, that's not how cars work. Even though I paid a lot of money for my car, I don't have the ability to switch between diesel and premium.

In July I wrote an article for PBDJ explaining what the PowerBuilder Web Deployment Kit, by Bruce Armstrong, version 1.0, was and how to use it (Vol. 7, issue 7). Well, things change rapidly in this brave new world, and by the time you read this a new major version of the PBWDK will be available.

In the September 2000 issue of PBDJ (Vol.7, issue 9) I showed you how to add an e-mail window to your client/server applications. We built an NVO that controlled your MAPI session and created a window that would send e-mail to a recipient.

If your application is long-running and uses PC resources intensively, it may be useful to display memory and processor usage in the application's window. It's a good idea to use graphics that look like those in the performance tab of the Windows NT Task Manager.

The first time the OO concept of inheritance and how it lends itself to reuse was explained to me, I viewed it as old news. You see, by the early '90s AC/DC had already put out the same album a dozen times. The pentatonic scale played at light speed...the blues-based rhythm guitar...four-four timing...it had all been done before. Lyrics were changed, themes were adjusted slightly, but all in all each record was simply inherited from the prior one. Inheritance and reuse was a standard to me. Information technology had finally caught up to the music industry. I'm such a fan of AC/DC and reuse that I reused the title from their song 'Flick of the Switch.'

In 1999 millions of dollars were spent preparing legacy systems for the dreaded Y2K meltdown. Thankfully, most of these core computer systems survived the 01/01/00 coding problem. However, businesses now face another issue regarding their legacy systems that in many ways will prove more challenging than simple Y2K code remediation.

Oh, no, that dreaded error calling external function is back! Ever get this message while working with OLE (object linking and embedding)? Well, I have, while trying to integrate PB, OLE, and Word 2000.

As more PowerBuilder applications are being converted to Java, I wrote this article to provide insight to those who might be involved in such a project. My experience comes from one particular project where the goal was to convert an order entry system written in PowerBuilder 6.5 to a Java 2 (1.2) application using Swing components.

For the past few months this column has focused on the basics of the PFC application/utility services. This month I'll provide an in-depth look at the most complex of these services: the application caching service..

It's all ancient history now. PowerBuilder 5 was still in beta, and Powersoft toured a series of seminars on this hot new version. One session focused on Distributed PowerBuilder. This concept blew me away, having come from a mainframe background. (Am I showing my age?) In fact, client/server was still exciting to me, so this idea of distributing NVOs and building application servers was downright flabbergasting to say the least.

The Jaguar CTS application server provides robust support for a number of different database connection approaches for its connection caches, including JDBC and ODBC, as well as native connectivity to Oracle and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise.

I'm going to take a little departure from DataWindows here. Judging from my e-mail over the years, I've discovered that some things are just more difficult for the PowerBuilder programmer to grasp than others. The TreeView is one of them. A recent e-mail asking for an explanation of that object inspired me to write this article. (Sample code for this article can be found on the PBDJ Web site.)

When designing distributed applications, developers typically create components based on required functionality, or related services. Some components will be entirely service oriented, but most will be standard components with a mix of retrieves, updates, and some processing logic.

In this month's column I'll present a simple Òhow toÓ on the PFC application and utility services, along with a simple description and code example for each service. They're among the least used in the PFC, but I've found them to be the most useful. These services are error, debug, and SQLSpy.

Just as PowerBuilder pioneered the 4GL approach to client/server Windows application development, version 8.0, currently in limited beta, brings a similar 4GL experience to n-tier Web development. PowerBuilder 8.0, scheduled to ship by Q2 2001, delivers features aimed at developers of both client/server and component-based applications.

How many times have you needed to add an extra menu item in a DataWindow popup menu? If you've ever done it, you know what a nightmare it is and how time-consuming it can be.

The Sybase Certified PowerBuilder Developers (CPD) program has been well regarded as a reasonable measurement of a developer's proficiency with PowerBuilder. Unfortunately, this test measures a developer's capabilities with the tool based on a two-tier client/server project and doesn't adequately measure the three-tier capabilities of the tool or the developer. Since three-tier development, Web and Jaguar CTS skills are in greater demand, I question the importance of maintaining my own CPD certification.

While developing an application, it was necessary to print out a Web page on a remote server ? a report of a user's on-site purchases. Although this data was stored in a database, a printout was needed at the location where the order was being filled.

Consider if you will a company buys the source code for a large natural gas operations and accounting application and gives a small team of developers the job of supporting it. There are 600-plus PB objects, over 1,700 stored procedures, 604 triggers, 179 views and 400-plus tables in this application.

The purpose of this project was to create a Web-based custom-forms generation system that would allow administrators to add reports to their requested package, and users to select reports. Several modularized pieces were included within its spectrum and each one needed to be connected for the application to work effectively. These pieces were three disparate database systems.

E-mail is almost as essential as the computer to the modern business world. To send messages, however, users must switch from their current application to the e-mail application. Not only is this annoying, cumbersome and time-consuming, it's completely unnecessary. As PowerBuilder programmers we can use the MAPI (mail application program interface) facilities that are built into the language to provide e-mail capabilities directly into our application.

EAServer is a component-based CORBA application server. That means it's built using a component architecture; Sybase made these components accessible, so just about anything the server can do, you can access and use.

The information industry continues to place a heavy demand and reliance on certifications in various products and technologies. While their merits, veracity and what they measure can be debated, there's no denying it's a booming industry and many potential employers and clients do look for certifications on a résumé.