Bruce Armstrong

(July 25, 2008) - Back in 2002, Sybase announced their four-phase approach toward adding .NET support to PowerBuilder. Phase 1 was the implementation of web services in PB9 and Phase 2 was the release of DataWindow.NET, which was packaged with PB 10. Phases 3 and 4 were the more significant phases. In Phase 3, Sybase added a number of .NET target types to PowerBuilder 11 and added support for calling non-visual .NET assemblies from PowerScript. The 4th phase will be completed in PowerBuilder 12 and involves “...support for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) ... as well as full support for visual controls and drag-and-drop programming with .NET within the IDE”.1 We’re at the mid-point between the release of PowerBuilder 11 (phase III) and the release of PowerBuilder 1... (more)

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare Some Code...?

PBDJ - PowerBuilder Journal PowerBuilder fans have been sharing code with one another since...well at least since the beginning days of CompuServe in the early 1990s. When PowerBuilder users gathered in just a single section in a general interest programming forum, we had an associated file library section, and when we moved to our own PowerSoft forum we had a series of file libraries. T... (more)

Using the Microsoft Chart Controls in PowerBuilder

You may not be aware of this, but Microsoft now provides a rather powerful charting control free of charge as an add-in for .NET 3.5. It's available for download at http://xrl.us/ben3pm. Because it supports 35 different chart types (see Figure 1), it can add significant new charting capability to PowerBuilder applications. As a .NET visual control we should be able to use it "natively" wi... (more)

New Features in PowerBuilder 11.5

In the previous articles in this series, we looked at FDCC changes (part 1) and GUI enhancements (part 2) in PowerBuilder 11.5. In this article, we'll be looking at the enhancements that were added to PowerBuilder 11.5 that are specifically related to .NET targets. The one thing we won't be covering in this regard is the .NET security enhancements that were covered in a previous PBDJ art... (more)

Come Get Your Beta While It’s Hot

The PowerBuilder 12.0 beta has officially started. It's pretty hard to overstate the magnitude of the changes that are taking place within PowerBuilder for this version. As a result, it's more important than ever for as many people as possible to participate in order to get the most amount of feedback as possible back to Sybase. It's going to be a lot easier to let Sybase know there's a ... (more)