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Resolved Can the flat appearance in the PB development environment be changed?

  1. How-to
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  1. Andrew Barnes
    Andrew Barnes
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Wednesday, 29 January 2020 23:07 PM UTC

We are using PB2017 R3 Build 1858 running on Windows 10 to develop in-house client-server desktop applications.  Our applications all use 3D borders on the various buttons and controls which are rendered perfectly in the applications once compiled, but are rendered in the Windows 10 flat style motif from within the PB development environment.  It is a bit of a pain developing where the application being developed looks different from the application as compiled.

Is there any PB configuration setting that will cause the PB development environment to display all 3D controls in 3D, both while coding and when running an app from within the PB development environment?  I poked about through all the settings I could find and did not see anything, so I am hoping that I missed something.

Thanks,

Andy 

 

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Roland Smith
Roland Smith Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 30 January 2020 13:48 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

Perhaps a manifest file for the IDE's executable might do it.

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Ricardo Jasso
Ricardo Jasso Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 30 January 2020 00:42 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

Do you experience flat style both in the Window Painter and in the DataWindow Painter?

My experience is flat style in the Window Painter and 3D in the DataWindow Painter. I have Windows 10 on my development computer.

I don't know the reason why I see 3D in the DataWindow Painter but I think it has to do with some dll included in PowerBuilder that is sustituting a dll from Windows.

In your case it could be the same, a Windows 7 type dll in your RunTime that is sustituting a Windows 10 dll and makes everything look 3D.

Anyway, I've never seen a setting that can change flat style to 3D in PowerBuilder.

Regards,

Ricardo

 

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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Friday, 31 January 2020 18:28 PM UTC
FWIW: The MS-Windows "flat" look started in W8 and then continued into W8.1 and on to W10. I do not see this movement towards 2D changing - especially, since Microsoft is really chasing the Apple flat look & feel. I wonder if the best thing might be to remove the PB 3D border feature all together? Thus, enabling (teaching) PB developers how to move their Apps forward GUI wise to meet the newer O/S's standards. Just a thought. ;-)
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Andrew Barnes
  1. Andrew Barnes
  2. Monday, 3 February 2020 18:27 PM UTC
Thanks for the reply Chris. If there was a hidden setting type of solution to my question, I think you would know, so I and my team will just live with things looking a little screwy in the IDE and getting the 3D look in the compiled applications.



Yes, changing everything to flat because Microsoft says that is best is a possibility, but doing so would be a significant undertaking given the size of our codebase. Another reason we haven't jumped on the 2D bandwagon is that our users prefer that we retain look and feel wherever possible. I understand their feelings. 3D borders are more effective at drawing a user's eyes to the controls than single-line box borders. On phones an tablets where screen pixels are at a premium, 2D borders make sense, but our use of PB is for in-house application development where everybody has big, hi-res monitors such that there is no penalty for wasting 4 pixels per control to render 3D.



For me, I would hate to see a future version of PB force the flat look on us. One of the things that is generally nice about PB is that it is usually not subject to the whims of Microsoft. Although along these lines, one curious omission that I see is that buttons in DataWindow objects do not have a FlatStyle option in the way that the standard command buttons do. So even if we were to drink the Microsoft KoolAid and change everything to FlatStyle, any DataWindow buttons would still be 3D in the painters.

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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Monday, 3 February 2020 19:57 PM UTC
Hi Andrew;

You are certainly welcome to open a Support Ticket as an enhancement request for 3D support in the IDE. Sybase only had that option in earlier PB versions when operating under XP. So this would have to be a whole new feature aspect if Appeon decided to enable this on W10 & beyond.

On the other hand, we have heard from gazillions of PB Developers and even App Users over the past decade that, PB Applications "need to look more like MS-Office". So with Microsoft driving a lot what business users see & want, the 2D look & feel of Office and MS-Windows 10 is the current path as far as we can see. So I am not sure how product marketing, sales and even engineering will be receptive wise to your 3D request. However, you never know until you try.

Regards ... Chris
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