PowerBuilder 11.5 and strong-named .NET Assemblies

Another new feature in PowerBuilder 11.5 is the ability to generate strong-named assemblies for any of the four .NET targets (Web Forms, Windows Forms, .NET Web Services or .NET Assemblies). What does this mean?

Well the Help file says this:

A strong name consists of an assembly's identity—its simple text name, version number, and culture information (when provided)—plus a public key and digital signature. It is generated from an assembly file using the corresponding private key. The assembly file contains the assembly manifest that includes the names and hashes of all the files that make up the assembly.

So, what are the benefits of creating strong name assemblies?

First you can be assured that a name is globally unique. According to the MSDN website, strong names satisfy the following requirements:

• 
  Strong names guarantee name uniqueness by relying on unique key pairs. No one can generate the same assembly name that you can, because an assembly generated with one private key has a different name than an assembly generated with another private key.
• 
  Strong names protect the version lineage of an assembly. A strong name can ensure that no one can produce a subsequent version of your assembly. Users can be sure that a version of the assembly they are loading comes from the same publisher that created the version the application was built with.
• 
  Strong names provide a strong integrity check. Passing the .NET Framework security checks guarantees that the contents of the assembly have not been changed since it was built.

Note that creating strong-named assemblies does not imply the same level of trust that is provided by a digital signature and supporting certificate.

More on Graphs in PowerBuilder 11.5

Last week I posted a screen shot of the new 3D Rendering capabilities being added to some of the 3D graphs in PowerBuilder 11.5. It was met with mixed reviews on the PowerBuilder Futures newsgroup (forums.sybase.com) so I went back to the drawing board to see what I could come up with. Apparently there are quite a few configuration settings one can set programmatically to render better looking graphs. For example, the primary color scheme default can be changed by making a couple of function calls for each data point or series. Here is a screen shot of an example application I am putting together to be released when 11.5 ships:

This feature is still in development so the legend doesn't take advantage of the translucency property yet.

Now lets look at a 3D chart that contains a series. First here is a screen shot of the original 3D graph style available in PowerBuilder 11.2 and earlier (and still available in 11.5 if you like the retro look):

Now lets see that same chart with the new 3D (DirectX) rendering turned on and translucency set on some of the series:

Looks a lot better. The new 3D rendering capability will be available for the following 3D graph styles: Area, Column, Pie, Bar, and Line. This should meet the majority of users' 3D graph needs. If you need something more powerful or want a wider selection of charting options, take a look at the FusionCharts demo available on CodeXchange at:

https://powerbuilder.codexchange.sybase.com/files/documents/67/2838/FusionChartsfree.zip

DataWindow Tooltips in 11.5

Today's sneak preview is on the DataWindow Tooltip enhancement in 11.5. This screenshot shows a tooltip on the first_name column:




This shows a tooltip with the title property populated as well as an icon property selected. It also shows the bubble format. Below you can see the list of properties that will be available for tooltips:



It is important to point out that you can place a tooltip on any control on the DataWindow. Drawing objects, buttons, nested reports, computed fields, labels, they all support the tooltip property!

New Graph Styles in 11.5

G'Day from Down Under. I've been in Australia since April 27th and while it is great to be "home" (I lived in Sydney from 1995-2000) I've been too busy to keep my blog up to date. I've got a few spare minutes today so I want to share with you another new feature being added to PowerBuilder 11.5.

There will be some new 3D graph styles based on DirectX technology. These new graphs will be available for Win32 and .NET Windows Forms applications.



Here's a screen shot of the new 3D Pie Chart. It isn't feature complete yet but it should give you an idea of what to expect.





You'll notice that there are some new properties in the DataWindow painter and some new functions are being added to allow you to get and set data and series labeling on various 3D graphs.