The document discusses modernizing a PowerBuilder application called Patricia. It overhauled the user interface to provide a more modern and consistent experience. This included clearly defining functional areas, allowing customization of access and translations, and improving reporting. It utilized new PowerBuilder features like background shading and treeviews. The changes helped keep the application competitive.

1. KEEPING
POWERBUILDER
APPLICATIONS
COMPETITIVE
Buck Woolley, Patrix AB, Powerbuilder Developer
John Strano, Sybase, an SAP Company, Technology Evangelist
May 17, 2012

2. INTRODUCTION
Buck Woolley, Powerbuilder Consultant at Patrix AB, 2004 -
Present
He has been actively developing software for a variety of
clients and industries using Powerbuilder since version 3.1.
He is the author of several articles on advanced
Powerbuilder datawindow development in both PBDJ and
ISUG journals. He has delivered presentations on the same
subject at several Techwave conferences and won the 2007
ISUG journal award for the article ‘Utilizing the Power of the
Datawindow Object’.
Some of his work can be seen on the website www.dw-
extreme.com.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

3. AGENDA
• What is the product?
• What is the market?
• What were the goals?
• Design considerations.
• Look at several specific changes to the application.
• Detail some Powerbuilder techniques used in the
update.
• Look at addition examples of user interface upgrades.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

4. PRODUCT - PATRICIA
• Intellectual Property... inventions (patents), trademarks,
industrial designs and copyrights.
• “Patricia is an enterprise wide solution that provides
point-and-click access to case data and automatic
tracking of relevant IP, i.e., laws/regulations, standard
forms, time and cost registration, invoicing, document
management including mail merge activities and batch
processing. “
• Monthly maintenance releases, yearly major release.
• Main application Patricia and a separate maintenance
system for setup.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

5. PRODUCT - PATRICIA
• First Windows release started development in 1995.
The application contained the look and feel that was
popular at the time.
• Originally developed for resolution of 800 x 600 SVGA
• Change in the mid 2000’s for 1024 x 768 XGA
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

6. MARKET
• Clients located worldwide.
• IP departments of corporations across all industries, IP
departments of law firms and specialized patent
bureaus.
• Single person offices to largest corporate entities.
• One - several hundred users.
• For each installation the requirements are quite varied.
Complex conversion processes.
• Support SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

7. IP TRIVIA....
What was the first
trademark ever
registered and when?
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

8. IP TRIVIA....
What was the first
trademark ever
registered and when?
1876 – The Bass
Brewery’s Red Triangle
for ale was the first
trademark to be
registered under the
Trade Mark Registration
Act 1875 in England
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

9. GOALS
• To modernized the user interface of the application for
competitive reasons by taking advantage of new
features in Powerbuilder.
• Improve and unify window presentation
• Provide for more user customization of windows and
lists
• Have applications fully localized, allow for the creation
of custom languages.
• Allow users to switch from old to new GUI at runtime to
facilitate the change.
• Better organization of querying and reporting, clean up
menus.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

10. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Complete makeover, not just an upgrade of the existing
UI.
• Keep all existing functionality, use as much existing
code as possible.
• Provide a more consistent experience throughout the
application
• Provide full customization of security, functionality,
presentation to the user/group level.
• Had to implement the new UI while doing routine
enhancements, wishes and bug fixes.
• Must integrate with existing windows, new UI phased in
over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

11. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Have a bit more of a ‘browser’ look. Present data as a
document by showing all data for a section in one
scrollable form, only displaying data. Make better use
of varied screen resolutions.
• Use a design template that would be familiar to most
Windows users.... Outlook. Modified with input from in
house users and group of client representatives.
• Use Powerbuilder classic, deliver standard Win32
application.
• Implement the project into three phases, each
scheduled for one year.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

12. EXISTING APPLICATION
The main window, traditional Windows MDI application that
has been expanded and added to over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

13. EXISTING APPLICATION
Tabs
Traditional Windows MDI application that has been expanded
and added to over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

14. EXISTING APPLICATION
Command Buttons
Traditional Windows MDI application that has been expanded
and added to over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

15. EXISTING APPLICATION
Various Input,
Summary and Image
Display areas
crowded together
Traditional Windows MDI application that has been expanded
and added to over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

16. EXISTING APPLICATION
Mystery Icons and
unmarked hotspots
?????
Traditional Windows MDI application that has been expanded
and added to over time.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

17. UPDATED APPLICATION
Same window in new UI with functional areas clearly defined.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

18. UPDATED APPLICATION
Header Information
New window with functional areas clearly defined.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

19. UPDATED APPLICATION
Window Functional
Areas
New window with functional areas clearly defined.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

20. UPDATED APPLICATION
Functional Area Specific
Actions
New window with functional areas clearly defined.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

21. UPDATED APPLICATION
Work Area
New window with functional areas clearly defined.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

22. CONSISTENT USER
EXPERIENCE
Basic Case Data
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

23. CONSISTENT USER
EXPERIENCE
Contact Management
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

24. CONSISTENT USER
EXPERIENCE
Financial Data
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

25. USE MODAL WINDOWS FOR
EDIT
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

26. SETTING FUNCTION ACCESS TO
USER GROUPS
This user has access to all the functional areas
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

27. SETTING FUNCTION ACCESS TO
USER GROUPS
This user has limited access to functionality
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

28. PRESENT DATA AS DOCUMENT
Only Items with data are displayed in a collapsable,
scrollable ‘document’
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

29. PRESENT DATA AS DOCUMENT
Small amount of data displayed
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

30. USER DEFINED LISTS
Columns in all lists can be selected, moved and
resized by the user.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

31. TRANSLATED AT RUNTIME
Translated by user and groups. Clients can create
their own language for custom labels.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

32. TRANSLATED AT RUNTIME
Localization by user and groups. Clients can create
their own language for custom labels.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

33. IMPROVED REPORT
REQUESTING
Report requests were scattered on the MDI menu
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

34. IMPROVED REPORT
REQUESTING
Reports are now consolidated on a report request window.
Access can be controlled per user group.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

35. IMPROVED REPORT
REQUESTING
Specific report lists for each section can be opened by
the user.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

36. IMPROVED REPORT CREATION
List creation and formatting together in one step.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

37. IMPROVED REPORT CREATION
Users are presented with all possible columns to
choose and arrange in a list.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

38. IMPROVED REPORT CREATION
Users can then format the list into
separate report using the Flex
Report component from Felix.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

39. NEW POWERBUILDER
FEATURES – BACKGROUND
SHADING
Background shading effects, introduced in Powerbuilder
11.5, are used extensively to give the application a modern
appearance.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

40. NEW POWERBUILDER
FEATURES - TREEVIEW
DATAWINDOW
The treeview datawindow, introduced in Powerbuilder
10.5, is used in many windows. An nvo was created to
turn any list into a user configurable treeview enabled
grid datawindow.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

41. TRANSLATION PROCESS
• 1. Retrieve all translations at startup for the users
language.
• 2. As a window is opened, extract and store all
text strings and objects associated with the
window and all included user objects and
datawindows.
• 3. During the open event, translate all strings
matching string text and the text objects owner if
necessary.
• 4. Apply translations back to the text parameters
of stored objects. If no translation is found then
use the existing text.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

42. TRANSLATION PROCESS
At application start up, retrieve all strings for the users
language into a globally defined dropdown datawindow
containing the base(english) data string and the
translated(french) display string.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

43. TRANSLATION PROCESS
The extracted labels are added to an array containing the
translation in a dropdown datawindow. The translated
values are extracted using a computed field containing the
lookupdisplay() function.
graphicobject[40] = cb_close
string[40] = ‘Close’
graphicobject[40].text = trans_value[40]
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

44. SUMMARY
• Created a complete makeover of the UI. Patricia
now has a modern competitive user interface.
• From a sales perspective: ‘...being a big
change to look and feel, there was a little
reluctance from old Patricia users to change
but within 30 minutes of doing so they all
realised the many benefits of the new GUI.
New users take to it immediately as it is
very logical and user-friendly....’
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

45. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES
• Apply the new datawindow objects visual
properties introduced in Powerbuilder 11.5 to
advanced dynamic datawindows to create modern
user interfaces.
• Specifically used the object background and
transparency properties.
• Example - Planner datawindow
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

46. EXISTING PLANNER WINDOW
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

47. NEW SCHEDULER WINDOW
Applied a new color scheme and implemented the background
gradients and object transparency from Powerbuilder 11.5.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

48. NEW PLANNER WINDOW
New features from PB 11.5 such as background effects
and transparency create a modern look.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

49. NEW PLANNER WINDOW
PB applications can be modern. Camtasia and PB.
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

50. THE FUTURE???
Moving to devices with Appeon Mobile
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

51. THE FUTURE???
Moving to devices with Appeon Mobile
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

52. RESOURCES
• Datawindow techniques slide presentation from 2006
Sybase Techwave.
http://www.slideshare.net/bwoolley3/techwave-2006-
advanced-datawindow-techniques
• PBDJ The Powerbuilder Datawindow as an Image
Thumbnail Display Control, Jan 2012
• PBDJ Datawindow Consolidation, In Print
• PBDJ List Management Using the Datawindow,
Coming Soon
• Patrix website www.patrix.com
• Flex Report Control
http://www.felix.fr/produits/flxReport/flxReport.cfm
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012

53. CONTACT
• Email: bwoolley@dw-extreme.com
• Skype: bwoolley
• LinkedIn: Buck Woolley
• Location: San Diego, CA
• Website www.dw-extreme.com
• New website under construction on
www.behance.net/dw-extreme
– Company Confidential – March 31, 2012