Advanced Appeon PowerBuilder

This course teaches sophisticated concepts at an accelerated pace. Students new to PowerBuilder are encouraged to complete the prerequisite course before taking this course.

Overview

This course introduces students to advanced techniques used to develop fully functional, well performing business applications using Appeon PowerBuilder. Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

• Create standard reports, including TreeViews, graphs, crosstabs, and multi-group reports.
• Create RichText, nested, and composite style reports.
• Manipulate the properties and behavior of the DataWindow control.
• Access and modify the properties of the DataWindow object.
• Describe the internal organization of the DataWindow buffers.
• Analyze issues involved in managing transactions and concurrency.
• Use DataWindow techniques to access, update, and validate data from the database.
• Create a DataWindow dynamically.
• Create and use DataStores.
• Use DataWindows to generate XML and PDF files.
• Create DataWindows that use a Web Service data source.
• Create and use standard, custom, and external user objects.
• Implement advanced elements of the graphical user interface, such as ListView, TreeView, Tab, MonthCalendar, DatePicker, and Animation controls.
• Use drag and drop for direct manipulation within the application.
• Use external functions in PowerBuilder applications.
• Use a variety of techniques to test, debug, and analyze PowerBuilder applications.

A series of written and lab exercises will be used to reinforce the classroom education.

Audience

Developers responsible for the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of client/server applications using Appeon PowerBuilder.

Prerequisites
• Introduction to Appeon PowerBuilder, or an equivalent class.
• Four to six weeks experience developing PowerBuilder applications.

This course teaches sophisticated concepts at an accelerated pace. Students new to PowerBuilder are encouraged to complete the prerequisite course before taking this course.

Length

5 days

Outline

Course Agenda
Advanced DataWindow Presentation Styles
• Group Presentation Style
• TreeView Presentation Style
• Crosstab Presentation Style
• N-Up Presentation Style
• Newspaper Column Reports
• Graph Presentation Style

DataWindow Reporting
• Printing-Related Functions
• Generating PDF and PSR Files
• Composite Presentation Style
• Nesting DataWindows
• Label Presentation Style
• RichText Presentation Style

Understanding DataWindow Behavior
• Data Validation Process
• Data Validation Techniques
• Required DataWindow Columns
• DataWindow Buffer Processing
• Managing Row and Column Status

Dynamic DataWindow Behavior
• Conditional Property Expressions
• Accessing DataWindow Object Properties
• Dynamically Changing a WHERE Clause
• Dynamic DataWindow Creation

Advanced DataWindow Techniques
• Using an External Data Source
• Using a Stored Procedure Data Source
• Creating and Using DataStores
• Sharing a Result Set
• Coordinating Updates

User Objects
• Standard Class User Objects
• Custom Class User Objects
• Standard Visual User Objects
• Custom Visual User Objects

Exception Handling in PowerBuilder
• Objects for Exception Handling
• TRY-CATCH Structure
• Creating User-Defined Exception Types
• THROW Statement
• Throwing Exceptions from Functions

Using Tab, ListView and TreeView Controls
• Tab Controls
• ListView Controls
• TreeView Controls

Using Web Services
• What are Web Services?
• Calling Web Services from Scripts
• Creating Web Service DataWindows
• Implementing Web Service DataWindows

Supplemental Topics (as time permits)
• Additional Scripting Topics
• Advanced GUI Controls
• Using Drag and Drop in Applications
• Using Data Pipelines
• Transaction Management