2014 PowerBuilder Worldwide Survey Results - Important Features for PowerBuilder Projects

: Super User; PowerBuilder Survey; 21 December 2014; Hits: 22760

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Which Features are important for PowerBuilder Projects

PB.NET Features

Crucial Features for PB.NET

While the usage rate of PB.NET remains low, we wanted to know why certain projects used this version. The graphs below represent the importance given to different PB.NET features.

The main goal of PB.NET consists of developing desktop applications based on the corresponding .NET technology (WPF). It’s however the feature used the least by participants of the survey, because only 17% believe that it’s a major feature. This result is in part due to the fact that the migration from PB Classic to PB.NET/WPF requires an important effort, which a lot of PowerBuilder projects are not ready to do. WPF could also have been chosen for development of new applications, but we know that a small part of PB users (see above) work on new development projects. They generally evolve existing PB Classic applications.

PB.NET is therefore mainly used to offer existing applications interoperability with .NET. That’s why the creation of components and .NET web services to be consumed by PowerBuilder applications are among the most wanted features in PB.NET.

Finally, we can see the years weighing on PB Classic’s IDE: the features offered by the IDE of PB.NET (based on Visual Studio) are the most appreciated in the ranking.

PB Classic Features

The following is a ranking of PB Classic improvements for your projects. (1 being not important and 5 being crucial)

Advanced IDE Features

Support for non-MSSCCI source control products

Other PB Classic Improvements (please explain)

PB IDE - PB Applications UI - DW Enhancements - Interoperability Compatilibity - Web - Mobile - Ntiers - Language - Miscellaneous

PB IDE

Advanced IDE features

Advanced script-editor-features, eg. doubleclick -> go to function, expand/collaps statement-blocks (if, for, do, ...)

Advanced search-functions, search-field in objects-browser, search for unused/duplicate objects, see which object is inherited from another and search for it.

save source in text files instead of PBLs (just like PB.NET);
real intellisense-like code completion (Autoscript is really awful);

Amélioration IDE : éditeurs scripts base... outils de d'analyse de code et de refactorisation

Be able to open an object for customization by entering it's name. (Don't having to find it in the right PBL first)

Better IDE

create Unit-Tests & Testrunner, integrated Translation-Service

StackTrace - why is it missing for years??

Global Search and Replace -> Refactoring

faster Autocomplete in 380 MB is Slow often not working even using a hotkey

Debugger shows wrong values modified values are not correctly transferred back especially changing RETURN l_ret values before leaving a Function the caller gets the wong value. Debugger crashes most times when clicking in the Call Stack

Having a parent and child user object open at the same time. Not being able to do this discourages rock-solid GUI development by punishing developers for compartmentalizing code and GUI elements. I've spent way too much time saving the object I'm working on, closing it, finding the child object, opening it, looking for a small piece of information, closing it, finding the original object, and opening that again so I can continue to work. PLEASE let us just keep both objects open. I'd rate this as a 6.

It would also be nice to have the kind of tool that guesses which function you are going to type or shows you all the functions and variables you are able to reference after typing a period. I don't know what it's called, but you know what I'm talking about. I told my developer friend that I never work with that sort of thing and it blew his mind, because it's such a time saver for him and he never has to look up variable or function names.

How about the capability to look at DataWindow buffers while in the debugger?

I work with big projects and use SVN as source control; I don't like any of SCC proxy I tried. Also tracking changes sometimes tricky:

IDE Enhancements (Intellisense, Jump to function / var definitions etc.)

IDE y documentación en Español

In order to stay current and maintain productivity, the IDE needs a major overhaul. In short the IDE is lacking in stability, refactoring support, source control integration, integration capability, unit testing, and object oriented techniques like Dependency Injection, interfaces, partial classes and delegates.

In PB classic Intellisense / ability to jump to other scripts based on the currently selected item in a script

IntelliSense in PB classic dev. environment. That would be a killer feature for every one!

Intelly help could be sanme what improved (see. VS or Eclipse).

Support of refactoring (maybe this is ment by Global Search and Replace?).

It is necesary fix/tweak ident source code. We had to develop a tool in order to ident the code.

Global font size increases/decreases

Jump to declaration of functions

Refactoring of script (ex. take a loop and automatically make a function of it). Or better let me build PB Classic in Visual Studio or Eclipe Editor with all the nice stuff that is in these Editiors."

Jump to definition of function or variable

More stable IDE. Powerbuilder crashes FAR too often.

Mostrar numero de línea en el código fuente en PB Classic

Open objects directly from script editor.

Since PB will never fix all the crashes (I'm sympathetic), how about an autosave feature so at least we won't lose so much work. Access to DW/DS content in the debugger.

Reduce Incremental and Full Build Time, Debugger Stability

Save my Caret position while working in another script

Smooth DW preview scroll, open/ inherited objects simultaneously, larger DW Expression window whith Syntax highlighting, tabbed Windows of opened objects, open scripts on ENTER in Event and function list

Text editor needs some serious updates like, line numbers, Intellisense, advanced text editing shortcuts, etc.

The ability to open 'objects' from the variable declaration. I.e. right click on 'object' (n_pdc....) and choose open/go to pbl...

The IDE has to be updated to be brought in line with the major IDE's in the market (VS, Eclipse). It is woefully behind.

Tools for automatic exe building; Tools for unit testing and monitoring; Advanced IDE for PB Classic like Visual Studio or Eclipse.

View data window buffer data inside the debugger, I rate this a 10.

When editing a script that has a function call in it, be able to jump to that function's script easily. Perhaps double-click to highlight then right click and choose to open script.

Source control is highly required

Possible to see and edit object comments (manifest (author), usage, todo-fixme etc) in painter (just now they are hidden into library painter) - 3

the ability to jump to a function definition from the calling source code.

We have a massive code base and moving around the software to trace what is happening is frustratingly slow. We use PBSearch to find the function, but then have to open the correct object in the correct pbl and it is frustratingly slow.

able to resize controls in powerbuilder like computed field expression box

Ability to resize all windows within the IDE, like the crosstab datawindow designer.

in PB classic IDE ability to open source of clicked object/function from sourcecode

Improve the IDE experience (better autocompletion, better navigation like Visual Studio where F12 goes into the selected class, in PB you must open everything manually, which is time consuming), opening two objects that are dependend of each other ( now you get an error so you have to close the first one)

Advanced IDE features like eclipse (e.g. expand/collaps code (if, for, do), jump to functions by doubleclicking in code, see informations/comments in autoscript)

Advanced search functions (e.g. field for object-name in object-browser, exclude objects in search e.g. DataWindows, find unused or duplicate objects)

OpenUserObject from a userobject

Classic IDE improvement: Highlight variable usage like in Eclipse

Better intellisense and without affect to clipboard

PB Applications UI

- more modern controls

- a correct print-preview (what you see on your monitor is not the same what you get on the printer)

(5) GUI improvements -> possibility to create more Up2Date applications

1. Make all IDE response windows resizable

more GUI options.

Advanced GUI

inclusion FOR FREE of a powerful GUI Library (such as PB Ultimate Suite)

Amélioration des composants visuel : menu rtf

More nice/modern looking graph types

Better Looking GUI applications!! It is 2014 for God's sake

Control appearance Windows 7 et 8

Transparent colors for any color property (all controls including any control on DW)

Modern Controls for classic apps e.g. XPListbar, Ribbon menues

We have to use 3-rd party RTF control because native RTF is disappointment.

Incorporation of more modern gui controls such as ribbon.

Integrate Crystal report from SAP into PowerBuilder to replace the old datawindow graph generation.

Support of colors in the window like it is already in the Datawindow. More modern GUI-Controls.

Items in the PB ultimate suite would be nice.

Mayor customización de los commandbutton (color, imagen, etc.)

mejorar los componentes para gráficas, la apariencia de los controles y ventanas..

modern controls and design features for PB-classic and DW

Modern GUI-Controls/Elements like Windows 8

Native spellcheck for Rich Text datawindows. We are hesitant to become dependant on 3rd party tools, and being able to make use of rich text for our reports is fairly critical.

Need better visual controls, like buttons with gradient and rounded corners, Tab controls with better tab shapes choices, Datagrid with single click sorting of columns.

Dockable windows in MDI.

Native prettier graphs.

Pouvoir redimensionner automatiquement la taille des écrans

Proper WYSIWYG TT Font on screen exactly what will print or pdf

Report Enhancement

gridview and treeview enhancements

To give our PB apps a newer look, the choice of skins or appearance themes would be nice

transparency in all controls, toolbar icons bigger than 16x16, menu bar with user defined font

Up to date GUI controls.

Updated, modern ribbon style menus. Applications currently look outdated.

Very Important improving controls look and User Interface.. Actually controls as Pushbuttons, Menus are very poor and old styled. Also Charts graphic and style should be improved.

Access to richer UI objects and more configuration for these.

Impove Graph datawindow features and redering, new GUI controls (ribon...), wpf/datawindow control library for PowerBuilder .net, today's look and feel application clipart library

Improve the Text Control to support DOCX files... This is critical... it demonstrates that PB can keep up with new standards.

Better graph component

DW Enhancements

- Datawindow-Export to Excel (the whole Design of Datawindow like the Software-Tool 'dw2xls' does)

2. Make every DWO property available as an expression

Ability to generate PDF or PDF/a for all types of DataWindows especially composite and nested DataWindows. Also fix the existing bug that has been in PowerBuilder for many many years. Auto height doesn't work 100% of the time when there is a page change. Texts get cut-off."

At least allow the 'Required' attribute of dw columns to use expressions

Datawindow column generic pronoun to make coding column expressions easier.

Do something with source of DW (store it as an xml?) to avoid some issues with overlaps of controls.

Add some events for column resizing in DW.

Color of grid selection (yeah this lovely black color is so 80s) why not to do it like in other tools.

Export to Excel WYSIWYG

For Dropdown DataWindow columns on a DataWindow object, when specifying Autoretrieve, having the possibility to map parameters of the DDDW with a) a constant value b) a parent DW parameter value c) a parent DW column value

templates for DW designs (ex: fonts, default heights, background / foreground colors, as much as possible

Make it so when a column is added to a DataWindow object, the stored procedure insert/update/delete properties are not silently deleted!

mejorar la opcion para migrar a Excel

mejoras en el crosstab, mejoras en el update de datawindows (selecion de todos los campos), datawindowchild retrieve por filas

Native PDF generation would be huge, Huge, HUGE!

que los crostab sean mejorados (se corrumpe y/o regeneran desde cero perdiendo el formato)

Grid dw Improvement

row based different size pictures in datawindow

Vertical scroll in DataWindows with groups doesn’t work fine

Would like resize to work on DataWindows. You can resize the windows, but the datawindow stays the same size.

Hierahical data in datawindow (editable subrows can have different structure) - 5

Sophisticated calculations for resonable width of columns on grid dw (who needs long varchar fields with width of 2 screens? (and use of PBextended attributes is not solutions here since databases change all the time)) - 3

2) in de datawindow painter autocompletion for columns example select o. from order o => o. should give a list of columns

3) don't remove the update properties when changing a datawindow, but come up with a message to remove or not

Fix error on datawindow retrieve arguments definition/modification

view datawindow / datastore data In debugger

Interoperability compatilibity

(5) better support for Java Code integration (only business logic) -> this would allow us to support ntier/distributed application for other operating systems like IBM AIX and Solaris (we have EAServer on those platforms, but obviously this is a dead end...)

64.bit deployment, win8-support, dockable windows, updated database drivers, ...

Native Win8 and 64-Bit support.

Pouvoir utiliser des composants .Net dans Pb classic

Amélioration des Web services...

Compilación a 64 bits, driver nativo con Informix 11

Connectivity to Microsoft SharePoint (for document storage, etc.) and MS Dynamics CRM/XRM development platform which are gaining footage in the corporate world very rapidly.

Creating and Consuming REST Web Services

improve .NET interoperability and integrate classic PB into PB.Net

Out of the box integration with SAP business suites, a lot of our customers us the SAP ERP platform.

Update more regularly compatibility with new OS and new DBMS

better datatype support for oracle, ability to handle custom oracle type definitions without having to declare in and out parameters.

JSON/REST service interface

Windows 8 certification, 64 bit

Lastest Native Drivers for Popular Database

many other features I would like to see, but one of the biggest I can think of right now is PB keeping up with the times and have native PB functions that interact with the 64 bit hive of the registry. If there were a way to code in PB classic, but leverage the .net framework somehow that would be huge. I did not like the PB.net interface (wpf)...to us it seemed very difficult to modify the UI. From the examples I liked what you could do with it, but. I played a bit with the PB.net doing a WPF app and REALLY enjoyed being able to do PB code and .net frame work....but if we could do the same thing in PB classic, that would be great. The simpleness of PB and only leverage the .net framework when needed wow....

We would also value Windows 8 support, 64-bit support, and MS SQL Server 2012 (and now 2014) support.

SAP R/3 integration

SAP R/3 integration trough NetWeaver Gateway or other mode ....

seamlessly integrate/interface with SAP business suite. Example with embedded function call to SAP RFC. Custom develop/replace SAP interface with PB.

Generation of OpenDocument formats (odt, ods) - 3

Improved .NET SOAP engine to work with WCF web-services

Support of all latest DB Version and Windows versions! Like SQL Server 2014 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 2012R2

Web - Mobile - Ntiers

(3) develop ria -> i like the idea of java web start, would help us deliver applications to client computers

4. Allow native web development

Ability to create full Web applications without Appeon! I was very upset when I heard about WebForms not being available in future releases. I have a couple of Web apps I will have to re-write. I also had to go out and buy new software to build a critical Web app for my agency. I do not like the new software near as much as I like Powerbuilder. It has taken me many months and I still am not done with a project that probably would have only take 1-2 months in Powerbuilder. Appeon is too expensive a solution for my agency.

Ability to create web apps.

Ability to deploy PB apps to Android and Linux platform.

Ability to deploy to the web a la Web Forms

Allow multiple files upload in the .NET web-based application.

Compile and distribute to the web without Appeon plug in

Compile to be mobile apps in android and iOS natively

HTML5

HTTPS post support

I would like to deploy non-WPF browser based applications from PB Classic.

Improve the web DataWindow. Bring out html5 web DataWindow that can be used with asp, asp.net supporting client javascript and server side coding. Not talking about webforms BTW.

INET HTTPS support!!!!!!!! native uri encoding, and json support

Mainly in the Appeon realm: Ability to deploy a web app without needing the Appeon Xcelerator, cross browser support, ability to deploy to iPads without getting sample applications downloaded with the Appeon app.

More Data Pipes features. Single source for mobile, web and desktop

Native WEB plugin for PB

Native web support (Crucial). Now we depend on Appeon to develop web application using PB.

New EASERVER

Otra alternativa a WebForms en PowerBuilder Classic

HTML5 Deployment

run web apps in chrome

Sería importante que PB pudiese desplegar en servidores tipo JBoss o IIS, sin necesidad de otros productos como Appeon

SOAP TECHNOLOGY example wsdl & REST.

Support Application Server

Support for an application server

Support for an Application Server!!!!

Support for application servers.

Support for Java and JavaScript

Support pour WSDL 2.0 dans PowerBuilder Classic. Par exemple la description du WebService Google suivant https://www.google.com/apis/ads/publisher/v201203/InventoryService?wsdl est mal importé dans PowerBuilder (y compris dans la version 15) parce que PowerBuilder ne connait pas la notion d'héritage (ClientLogin est dérivé de Authentication).

The ability to use HTML for the gui

Understand that web forms targets are no longer supported. This is one of the crucial targets that we use in our company and hence prevent us from upgrading.

Improved web services development options

We would like to PB extensible like Java or .Net is. PB code should be universally available including Linux, Unix etc. If EAServer is EOL'd then we would like to see the code deployed to any Java/.Net servers easily. If EA Server is not possible, please bring back distributed PB.

WEB FORM APPLICATION

Would like a HTML5 target

Web service enabling for jboss and open source is one great addition

Native Web support (Web Forms)

The ability to create web applications without appeon that will run on IE 10/11.

Please return Webforms! They are great!

Web Development

Language

3. Allow WPF development in the Classic IDE

improvements to PowerScript object-orientation (e.g. interfaces, generics, delegates);

Amélioration du langage : constructeur avec paramètres, interface..

Bring back ObjectCycle, Distributed PowerBuilder, C++ User Objects.

Add C# User Objects, J2EE User Objects, WCF & RESTful Web Services!

callback function

Dynamic compilation. resolve bad runtime errors when add functions or instance variables to objects

Also, associative arrays or N-dimensional arrays would be very useful.

Better array type handling instead of just numeric indexing.

Insertar código C++ en código Power Builder.

Language Improvement like constructor with argument, interfaces and few built in latest gui controls.

Polymorphic references to datawindows and datastores. Programmatic access to data in nested reports.

Wrapper/support for external functions which need callback functions - 2

1) options to see where if end if construction begins like in pl/sql developer

Miscellaneous

As tablets and wireless networks become more ubiquitous, it's important to have a transaction object that can properly manage connects and disconnects gracefully. The more support for this that can be built into the IDE (instead of having to custom build transaction management), the better.

Be able to properly patch executable by sending only specific pbd libraries and not complete executable

A better version controller.

I want my compiled Help back again!! It’s bloody ridiculous that they released version 12 with such crappy help!

- when you rename existing event/function it may change its place in functions list in .sr? file,

- when you edit window with OCX control on it OLE specific data is changed every time, even if you don't change OCX object properties

- when you group select controls in DataWindow object (with Ctrl key pressed) the order of controls in .srd file changing leading to a mess in comparison between old .srd and new .srd even if the change was minor.

- the way .pbg files are changing isn't clear, at least it must be documented

ORCAscript is really weak, it should be more powerful, look at PBOrca.

Better implementation for Multi threading application allowing PB apps to be more responsive and thus increase the user experience. Faster full rebuilds.

inline filter, sorting, multi column, keystroke search and find, better stability as I get many null references and unresolvable external linking during runtime and it is not consistent.

manipulate ZIP libraries including SFX

Need better Help files, as an example, there should be chapter wise explanation / tutorial of how to go about writing first WEB application. We need guide explaining Client-Server to Web code migration with legacy code salavging. Need explanation with example code for Web Application indicating how to take care of Session, Transaction & Security.

Poder enviar correos desde codigo de power builder sin necesidad de usar la configuracion de Outlook

Internal reliable support for hirarchical data (not limited pbxml, not oleobject msxml etc) - 5

Send and recieve e-mails, call external functions of DLLs too complicated.