DataWindow controls and components

The DataWindow was originally invented for use in PowerBuilder
to provide powerful data retrieval, manipulation, and update capabilities
for client/server applications. Now the DataWindow is available
in several environments:

• PowerBuilder
  DataWindow

  A PowerBuilder control for use in client/server and
  distributed PowerBuilder applications.

• Web DataWindow

  A thin-client DataWindow implementation for Web applications
  that provides most of the data manipulation, presentation, and scripting
  capabilities of the PowerBuilder DataWindow, requiring the Web DataWindow
  component on a component server but no PowerBuilder DLLs on the
  client. The Web DataWindow can be implemented in three ways:

  • XML Web DataWindow

    Separate XML (content), XSLT (layout), and CSS (style) with
    a subsequent transformation to XHTML

  • XHTML Web DataWindow

    XHTML

  • HTML Web DataWindow

    HTML

• Sybase DataWindow Web control for ActiveX

  An ActiveX control for use on Web pages. The client browser
  must support ActiveX controls to display a DataWindow object used
  by this control.

• WPF DataWindow

  Windows Presentation Foundation DataWindow with managed code.
  In the PowerBuilder .NET IDE, you can create WPF Window Application
  targets. For more information, refer to the PowerBuilder .NET documentation.

For a comparison of each of these environments, see “Choosing a DataWindow technology”.

You can also use DataStore objects as containers for a DataWindow
object. DataStores provide DataWindow functionality for retrieving
and manipulating data without the on-screen display. Uses for DataStores
include specifying layouts for printing and managing data in the
server component of a distributed application.

What DataWindow objects are

A DataWindow object is an object that you use to retrieve,
present, and manipulate data from a relational database or other
data source (such as an Excel worksheet or dBASE file). You can
specify whether the DataWindow object supports updating of data.

DataWindow objects have knowledge about the data they are
retrieving. You can specify display formats, presentation styles,
and other data properties to make the data meaningful to users.

In the DataWindow painter, you can also make Powersoft report
(PSR) files, which you can use in DataWindow controls or components.
A PSR file contains a report definition—essentially a nonupdatable
DataWindow object—as well as the data contained in the
report when the PSR file was created. It does not retrieve data.

Where to define DataWindow objects

You define DataWindow objects in the PowerBuilder DataWindow
painter. You
can also define nonupdatable DataWindow objects in the InfoMaker Report
painter.