Introduction to PowerBuilder

PowerBuilder Features

The following is an overview of PowerBuilder features.

• Object-Orientation Implementation: Supports inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism, with the ability to overload methods at the same object level without using inheritance for the same. You need to create all the classes using GUI painters, and PowerBuilder does all the dog work, behind the scenes.
• SQL Support: PowerBuilder supports SQL and Stored Procedures using DataWindow and embedded/dynamic SQL and remote procedure calls.
• DataWindow: DataWindow control is the heart of PowerBuilder and is used to display data in a wide variety of presentation styles—Freeform, Tabular, Grid, Labels, Group, N-up, RichText edit, Graph, Crosstab, OLE 2.0 and Composite—by executing SELECT statements or Stored Procedures in the database. They can also be populated programmatically. DataWindow automatically updates the data source just by writing a few lines of PowerScript code.
• Embedded/ Dynamic SQL: PowerBuilder supports both embedded and dynamic SQL, including scrollable cursors and Stored Procedure execution.
• Remote Procedure Calls: It also supports calling Stored Procedures and procedures using function-calling notation (programmers in the industry call this 'remote procedure calls' even though the actual meaning of 'remote procedure call' is differs from this).
• Database Connectivity: Database connectivity is its strong point.
• ODBC Drivers: Supports all popular databases—Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server, Informix, Oracle, and DB2—using ODBC 3.0 drivers.
• OLE DB & JDBC Support: With version 7.0, PowerBuilder supports OLE DB API as well as JDBC API also.
• Native Database Drivers: Provides native database drivers for Oracle 8.0, Informix 6.2, Sybase SQL Server 11.1 and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.x.
• Dynamic Data Exchange: PowerBuilder supports DDE at window object level. PowerBuilder application can act as a DDE client or DDE server or both.
• OLE 2.0 Support: PowerBuilder supports OLE 2.0 including OLE 2.0 automation from version 4.0 onwards.
• OLE 2.0 Window Control: Acts as an OLE 2.0 container and OCX Controls can also be inserted.
• OLE 2.0 - DataWindow:
• DataWindow Presentation Style: Data can be displayed in any of the OLE 2.0 server's format.
• OCX Control: OCX control can be inserted in DataWindow like any other object.
• OLE 2.0 Automation: This feature was introduced in version 4.0. PowerBuilder can act as an OLE 2.0 client, server or both. V6.0 supports DCOM—Distributed Component Object Model—also.
• MAPI Support: PowerBuilder supports MS-Windows messaging standard MAPI—Messaging API.
• Web Support: DataWindow can be saved as HTML table and form with only one line of code. PowerBuilder applications can be deployed on the web in different ways:

• DataWindow Plug-in: Used basically to display DataWindow reports on the web.
• Window Plug-in: Used to deploy PowerBuilder applications on the web. Using 'Context' object—gives access to the browser's exposed services—you can make use of browser's services—an example would be displaying an URL from other site. Supports secure mode also.
• Window ActiveX Control: Functionally similar to Window Plug-in—Plug-in is Netscape's way of running other applications in its browser, and 'ActiveX' is Microsoft's way. Supports secure mode also.
• Web.PB Class Library: Used to generate HTML dynamically at the web server level.

• Distributed Objects: From version 5.0, PowerBuilder applications can be deployed as client app or application server or both. Client app and Server applications talk using TCP/IP and other popular protocols. Supports 'Asynchronous'—Fire-and-Forget communication and server push also.
• Unicode Support: V6.0 supports Unicode. In case you do not know what Unicode is, each ASCII character takes 8 bits which limits the usage of Asian languages such as Japanese, Hindi, Telugu, etc. in computer applications since characters in those language can't fit in 8 bits. Using Unicode in which each character takes 16 bits, you can develop applications for non-English languages also. Unicode is supported by MS-Windows 95/NT.
• Built-in Support for Arabic, Hebrew Languages: These languages use right-to-left writing style.
• Translation Assistant: This tool helps you in deploying PowerBuilder application in multiple languages with minimum efforts.
• Support for Pen Computing: Class library for Pen Computing can be used on pen based Windows systems, to implement pen-computing interface in PowerBuilder applications.
• Lotus Notes Support: Powersoft ships a class library for Lotus Notes, using which you can display information from Lotus Notes in PowerBuilder and also update changes back into Lotus Notes.
• Support for Operating Functions: You can use operating system functions, by declaring them as external functions, with an exception of callback functions.
• NetWare Support: A class library is available to call Novel NetWare functions.
• Third-Party Vendor Applications: Third party controls can be used in PowerBuilder, either as OCX controls or as external user object.
• Multi Platform support: Available for MS Windows 95, NT, 3.x (deployment only from v6.0 onwards), Macintosh, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX.
• Support for Transaction Servers: Supports Sybase Jaguar CTS and Microsoft Transaction Server.
• Application Profiler and Tracing: APIs are available to log all tracing information and analysis.
• PowerBuilder Foundation Class Library: Available since version 5.0. (Learn about this in detail in the PFC session).
• Synchronizer: Allows you to make sure that the user always uses the latest files. Synchronization can be done on the web also.
• ORCA: Allows you to access PowerBuilder library—a file that stores PowerBuilder objects—functions such as copy, rename, delete, move, export, import, compile, check-in/out PowerBuilder objects, create executables, look into inheritance hierarchy and so on, from outside programs, typically a C program.
• C++ Class Builder: Allows creating C++ classes from within PowerBuilder and uses those classes in PowerBuilder.
• Version Control Interfaces: Supports popular version control products including Object Cycle—a RDBMS based version control software from Powersoft and Microsoft Common Source Code Control Interface Specification.