Call SOAP Web Services Using HTTPClient Object

Since PowerBuilder 2017 R2, we have a new HTTPClient object, which is a base object for sending HTTP requests and receiving HTTP responses from a resource identified by a URI. Compared to the Inet object, the HTTPClient object is easier to use and supports more methods (Get/Post/Put/Delete) and more SSL protocols (TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2, SSL 2.0, and SSL 3.0).

Among other things, the HTTPClient can be also used to consume SOAP Web services. This is particularly useful as the Web Service Proxy has many limitations and defects calling SOAP Web services such as not supporting TLS 1.2. This article is to show how you can use the new HTTPClient to call your existing SOAP Web services instead. 

PowerBuilder 2019 New Feature: Applying a New UI Theme to Your Application

In PowerBuilder 2019, 3 new UI themes are provided to control how PowerBuilder’s commonly-used controls render in runtime applications. These new UI themes adopt a “Windows 10” style to enhance the appearances of applications. For detailed description of the themes, see Understanding system themes and Details on the theme settings and their effects.

You can directly control whether an application applies a new UI theme, or provide users with the ability to select a preferred theme by themselves. For details, see Applying a theme.

It is possible for you to modify a system theme through changing the theme template files, or to copy a system theme to create a custom theme. This way, you can further tune the color settings in the theme to your personal preference. For details, see Creating a custom theme.  

You may want to use the UI theme settings together with the PowerBuilder IDE settings and scripting techniques to achieve optimum UI effects. For samples on how to start the work, see Several useful techniques to further adjust your user interface.

Git Enhancements in PowerBuilder 2017 R3

Support for using Git as a source control system without going through a bridge product was added in 2017 R2 and covered in a previous blog post.  In this blog post we're going to look at the enhancements that were added to that feature in 2017 R3. 

JSON Enhancements in PowerBuilder 2017 R3

There were some JSON features introduced in 2017 R2, in particular the JSONGenerator and JSONParser, which were covered in a previous blog post.  2017 R3 introduces additional important JSON features, in particular JSON import/export from a DataWindow, and a JSONPackage object that is used to merge/extract JSON data sets.  Those will be covered in this blog post.

PowerBuilder 2017 R2 New Feature: REST

One of the new features added to PowerBuilder 2017 R2 is support for REST web services.  This feature isn't 100% complete, as additional REST functionality is planned for 2017 R3.  There's still a lot in the R2 release to look at though.

To make things simple for the demo, we're going to use a online REST web service called JSONPlaceHolder..  The service doesn't require creating an account or user authentication.  While the GET (retrieve) methods are fully functional the POST ( insert ), PUT/PATCH ( update ) and DELETE (delete) methods are placeholders.  They return result codes or in the case of POST the id value of the inserted row, but they don't actually modify the data.

Note that while REST web services can return data in any internet mime encodable format, the vast majority of them use JSON  and JSON is the only data format supported by the REST client object in PowerBuilder 2017.

Inno Setup: Sample .ISS File

PowerBuilder v12.1, build 7055
Windows 7 32 bit platform
Windows 7 64 bit platform
Windows 10, 64 bit platform


A Sample Inno Setup ".ISS" File
Olan Knight
28-Mar-2019


Once upon a time, long, long ago, we used a product called InstallShield to create the Windows installer for our various products. Over time, the cost for InstallShield became prohibitive, and we eventually settled on using Inno Setup as the replacement tool to create out installers.

You can get the free tool here:    http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
The excellent HELP file is here:     http://www.jrsoftware.org/ishelp/   

It's a simple and intuitive tool, but it has some quirks and there is a learning curve. 
Inno Setup uses an ".iss" file as its source code. It compiles that ISS file into the SETUP.EXE for your application, with the file name being up to you.

Curso en Español de PowerBuilder

Hola Amigos, Comparto mi curso básico de PowerBuilder en Español. Los temas son los siguientes:

• Introducción a PowerBuilder
• Ambiente de desarrollo de PowerBuilder
• Crear un objeto Aplicación
• Creación de ventanas
• Power Scripts
• Bases de datos relacionales
• Painter de Bases de datos
• Objeto DataWindow
• Conexión a Bases de datos
• Programación orientada a objetos en PowerBuilder
• Construyendo Menus
• Introducción a aplicaciones MDI
• Usando DataWindow Controls y MDI Sheets
• Mostrando datos de la base de datos y declarando User Events
• Conexión de DataWindows a Bases de datos
• Declaración y uso de funciones en ventanas
• Declaración y uso de eventos en ventanas
• Creando instancias de ventanas
• Declarando y usando Funciones
• Modificando, Insertando, y borrando filas
• Salvando cambios en la base de datos
• Creación de Ejecutables

Working with Branches in Git for PowerBuilder

One of the reasons that people choose to use Git is how easy it is to do branching. Unfortunately, PowerBuilder hasn't implemented it yet. But that doesn't stop you from using this feature if you don't mind taking a few extra steps. This article shows you how you can work on different branches with the help of TortoiseGit. 

Tips on Using Git with PowerBuilder

Many PowerBuilder developers want to try Git as it gains in popularity. However, as PowerBuilder IDE still relies on the binary PBL format instead of directly working with the plain text source code files, the implementation of native Git support comes with some special features that you may need to be aware of in order to use Git properly or to work around some of the limitations. This article tries to give some tips in this area.