Berndt Hamboeck

The DropDownDataWindow (DDDW) edit style is one of PowerBuilder's outstanding features. Yes, I know there are a lot of new and exciting capabilities in the upcoming release of PowerBuilder, but in this article I'll try to solve some of the current problems with the existing features that are popping up in nearly every project I've seen. Here I'll focus on DropDownDataWindows, including: How to get started with DDDWs Filtering DDDWs without losing the display value in other rows Catching the collapsing of a DDDW Trapping the cursor keys in a DDDW Autocomplete DDDW values Getting Started The basics are well covered in the PowerBuilder User's Manual, but if you still have problems defining them look at Figure 1. Click on the column you want and its edit style (yes, click on edit on the properties) as DDDW (choose DropDownDW as Style Type). Next, choose your DataWindow, ... (more)

The PowerBuilder 9 IDE

Okay, I know you're already familiar with the PowerBuilder IDE. Yes, you're one of those people who knows where to find the system tree and how to turn it off. And you already know what the clip window is for (if you don't, look at it, it's a pretty cool feature - we used it in our 7-year-old application to document who made changes or bug fixes). No, that's not what I'll be talking about today. I want to discuss the internals of the IDE, as it has improved a lot since PowerBuilder 7. The Idea Why should we take a closer look at the IDE? It works great, we like it, so everythin... (more)

LDAP with EAServer and PB 8.0

In Part 1 (PBDJ, Vol. 9, issue 6) I discussed directory services and how they provide authentication, access control, and finder services for our application. In Part 2, I explain how the JNDI API lets us easily use LDAP. JNDI Overview The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) is an application programming interface (API) that provides naming and directory functionality to Java applications. It's independent of any specific directory service implementation, thus a variety of directories - new, emerging, and already deployed - can be accessed the same way. JNDI Architecture T... (more)

Secure Your Passwords

As architects of enterprise systems, we know that security should always be a concern when we transfer or store sensitive data. In the past, you might have cut corners because you assumed the corporate LAN provided some implicit level of protection. You might have rationalized that because only people with access to the LAN could see data being transferred across the wire - and surely no one at your company would try to steal sensitive data - your data was secure. Likewise, your internal applications might not have been passing sensitive information and you leveraged password pro... (more)

Go for Java IDEs

Many of us started playing around with Java several years ago, fighting our way through CLASSPATH variables, packages, and javac.exe, and ended up with our first "Hello World" or file read/write/close application. What did we use to write our first small application and classes? Notepad or another of our favorite text editors. Do you know what? We were happy. We didn't need to learn another IDE and we produced some small Java tools in a reasonable time. However, Java grew very, very fast. Suddenly there was Swing and EJBs and, wow, wait, there was a complete specification on how t... (more)