Vince Fabro

You stumble on a bug in your application. In order to troubleshoot it you need to see the raw data inside your DataWindow but the columns you need aren't visible. ... You open a window in your application, and even though you don't change any of its data it still prompts you to save when closing. What has changed? ... A drop-down DataWindow isn't displaying the right values at runtime, but it retrieves just fine when you preview it at design time. Where's the data? ... You're pulling your hair out trying to get some modify/describe syntax to work, and it's taking forever between changing your code, saving and rerunning your application. Can you possibly get the syntax right and still get home on time? The solution to all of these problems can be found in the PFC DataWindow properties dialog - after we make some enhancements, that is. The DataWindow Properties Dialog... (more)

Web DataWindows Made Easy

In my January article in PBDJ (Vol. 7, issue 1) I covered the basics of the Web DataWindow and we ended the article with the home page. We'll now move on to the employee page. The Employee Page The employee page is going to use two DataWindows: one that displays some department details, another that displays a simple list of employees for a given department. For the department detail DataWin-dow create a tabular DataWindow that retrieves the dept_id, dept_name and dept_head_id from the department table. Specify a retrieval argument for dept_id and use that in the where clause (t... (more)

Debugging DataWindows - Live!

You stumble on a bug in your application. In order to troubleshoot it you need to see the raw data inside your DataWindow but the columns you need aren't visible. ... You open a window in your application, and even though you don't change any of its data it still prompts you to save when closing. What has changed? ... A drop-down DataWindow isn't displaying the right values at runtime, but it retrieves just fine when you preview it at design time. Where's the data? ... You're pulling your hair out trying to get some modify/describe syntax to work, and it's taking forever between ... (more)

Window Applications- Web DataWindows Made Easy

A lot of hoopla has surrounded the Web DataWindow, and it's actually well deserved. Not so long ago PowerBuilder critics claimed that PB would never make it to the Web because it was designed mainly for building client/server applications. I had my own doubts back then, but with the Web DataWindow much of the power of PowerBuilder is now available on the Web. This allows PB developers to build Web sites for dynamic publishing and e-commerce transactions with relative ease. Many articles have demonstrated the features of Web DataWindows, with examples of how to include them in HT... (more)

Web DataWindows Made Easy

In my January article in PBDJ (Vol. 7, issue 1) I covered the basics of the Web DataWindow and we ended the article with the home page. We'll now move on to the employee page. The Employee Page The employee page is going to use two DataWindows: one that displays some department details, another that displays a simple list of employees for a given department. For the department detail DataWin-dow create a tabular DataWindow that retrieves the dept_id, dept_name and dept_head_id from the department table. Specify a retrieval argument for dept_id and use that in the where clause (t... (more)