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PowerClient: Deploy to a Raspberry pi with Apache.

/ Andreas / 3 Comments

PowerClient is the new deployment method for client server applications created using PowerBuilder 2019 R3. It offers a “smart” way to install applications to pc’s and keep them up to date. The main advantage of this deployment method is that to install an application to a pc, you simply have to launch a url. If it’s the first time the application is installed on this pc, a web page will show up allowing the installation of a generic launcher application, and later our application will be downloader, installed and executed.

One advantage of this deployment method is that you can make it work in almost any web server. I’ll demonstrate a powerclient application running from an apache server on a raspberry pi 4.

What we need:

  • A raspberry pi.
  • Apache server.
  • FTP server or samba enabled to our raspberry.

I’ll use a raspberry pi 4, with 2 GBytes of RAM. But I’m 100% sure this would easilly run event in a pi 3 board, as apache server runs very well on both of them.

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PowerBuilder 2019 R3. First Impressions.

/ Andreas / 1 Comment

Almost 10 days since Appeon released PowerBuilder 2019 R3. This version introduces a lot of new functionalities, and lot of improvements. A detailed list of newly introduced features and improvements can be found in the following link: What’s New – (appeon.com).

After working on upgrade of a huge project from PB 11.5 to PB 2019, I can say that the procedure is very easy, and at upgrade completion we only had minor issues mostly related to PFC (PowerBuilder Foundation classes). But even those issues were easily resolved. We finished having our application ready for testing after 2 days. This is impressive, as for this upgrade we changed the release of PFC’s we used in PB 11.5 with the latest one for PB 2019.

Finally, we tested PowerClient deployment, and we were impressed by the result. The end user has almost nothing to do to install the application. Only to open a specific url (where the installer and the prerequisites are located). Everything is automated. Depending on the size of the application, the end user ends up in a couple of minutes with the application installed on his pc and running. It is a good alternative as it has lot of advantages compared to using a setup program. And the PowerClient Deployment is customizable in a satisfactory level. And most important, you can deploy it to non IIS Web Servers and on non Windows Os. I’ve tested the deployment procedure in a raspberry pi with apache. If you are interested take a look to that post PowerClient: Deploy to a Raspberry pi with Apache.

B4A to become free.

/ Andreas / Leave a comment

Anywhere Software announces that B4A will become free. Currently it’s an IDE that is sold at a low cost. At the moment, there is still an option to buy a license (the standard one, at $59). The enterprise is available only for B4i.

Follows a link to the announcement.

https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/its-time-to-grow.113257/

As mentioned the product will become free in a few weeks. I guess during February 2020…

Great news.

B4A, is a great product, and will added to the free products currently available from Anywhere Software, B4J and B4R.