Lesson 24: PowerBuilder Foundation Class Library

In previous versions of PowerBuilder, Powersoft introduced the concepts of window, menu and user object inheritance for developing applications. Even though PowerBuilder helped speeding up Windows GUI development, it still required a lot of work and code. Alternative approaches included writing your own class library or using a third party class library, such as PowerFrameâ or PowerToolâ .

Building frameworks and object libraries requires a large amount of effort and can be a complex task to undertake. If your company is just getting started with PowerBuilder, creating a framework on your own would be challenging. Typically, you could save yourself the development time and buy a third party product, but you'll still need to do some sort of analysis and customization. If you're just getting started with PowerBuilder, you probably don't know what features to look for in a framework.

Powersoft has responded to user requirements with a service-based architecture, Foundation Class library (PFC). Powersoft ships the PFC with the Enterprise Edition of PowerBuilder 5.0. If you are not a enterprise version user, you can get PFC by purchasing the advanced developers kit. You now have a foundation class library which is supported by the vendor, similar to what Microsoft has done with the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC).

Having a foundation class library in the primary tool itself reduces the need for relying on third party class libraries, but it is only intended to provide a consistent framework and foundation which future third party libraries are expected to build on.

Don’t just read this session. Keep the PowerBuilder and the web-browser/hard copy of this session open and browse the code for all the objects mentioned in each topic. Make the logic flow diagrams for each topic. We advise you not to skip to the next topic till you understand each topic in this session.

After this session you will be able to:

	Understand FrameWorks
	Understand Class Libraries
	Understand Service Oriented Class Libraries
	Understand PFC Architecture
	Develop Applications using PFC
	Apply new releases of PFC

Estimated lesson time 600+ minutes

Before you begin:

You should have PowerBuilder Professional/ Enterprise edition or PowerBuilder Desktop with Advanced Developers Toolkit installed on your computer.