Roadmap Focus Areas

Appeon is committed to releasing, in agile 6-12 month cycles, new product features to meet the evolving needs of our customers. These needs span maintaining existing client/server systems for the long haul to rapidly moving to the Cloud. In terms of roadmap, this gets translated into four key focus areas: sustaining core features, modernizing application UI, improving developer productivity, and incorporating more Cloud technology.

C/S Maintenance

Maintaining existing client/server systems in PowerScript, especially ensuring its stability, security, and long-term viability.

API-Enablement

Migrating existing PowerScript business logic into Web APIs that adhere to open standards and C# best practices.

Cloud Conversion

Converting existing client/server systems to the Cloud at extremely low cost, often times to replace VDI solutions.

Cloud Development

Developing new Cloud apps in PowerScript or other popular UI technologies that are driven by C# REST APIs.

Upcoming Features

Appeon typically introduces major new features in major versions of our products. We then revise a major version, based on customer feedback, a few times to enhance its key features, introduce new minor features, and arrive at a long-term support version. However, for all 2021 versions, we are skipping revisions and long-term support until the 2022 versions.

The upcoming features we are disclosing is our minimum plan that is subject to change without notice. We are not able to publish a complete or detailed feature list, especially for revisions, since customer feedback has significant impact on our product plans. So use this information to gain a sense of what may possibly come in the near future, and you can see our progress in agile 6-12 month cycles.

PowerBuilder/PowerServer Roadmap

2021

    Focus Area:   Cloud    

• Installable cloud app deployment

Provides a new project type, PowerServer, for deploying PowerScript projects as installable cloud apps with REST API architecture.

    Focus Area:   Dev Productivity    

• CI/CD using Jenkins and/or other frameworks

Supports continuous integration and deployment for client/server apps and installable cloud apps.

2022 (including revisions)

    Focus Area:   UI    

• Enhancing UI Theme feature

Further enhances the UI Theme feature based on customer feedback.

• Resolve UI compatibility issues that are high priority

Ensure that the UI of PowerBuilder applications stays compatible with technological changes.

    Focus Area:   Core    

• Calling .NET 5 assemblies

Support natively calling .NET 5 assemblies from PowerScript.

• Supporting the latest Windows OS/database versions

Supporting the latest Windows OS/database versions.

• Resolve any security issues that are discovered

Resolve any security vulnerability issues that are discovered with the highest priority.

• HTTP/2 and TLS 1.3

Supports the latest HTTP and security protocols HTTP/2 and TLS 1.3.

• Enhancing REST API security

Connect to a RESTful Web API using a certificate file.

• Enhancing NativePDF printing

Further enhance the NativePDF printing feature based on customer feedback.

• 64-bit runtime optimization

Enhances the performance and memory handling for 64-bit applications to take advantage of 64-bit architecture.

    Focus Area:   Dev Productivity    

• Tabbed interface

Enable the IDE to display multiple opened editors in tabs rather than MDI.

• New code editor

Replace the existing code editor of the IDE with a new code editor that supports modern editing features.

• Enhancing search capability

Make it more productive to search for objects or scripts in the IDE.

• 64-bit debugging

Enable the IDE to use the 64-bit PowerBuilder Runtime so that the debugger can be used with 64-bit applications.

• Installable cloud app debugging

Provide support for debugging PowerClient/PowerServer projects.

• Enhancing Git/SVN

Support PBL generation from the source code, thus eliminating the need to upload PBLs to Git/SVN.

• IDE compilation environment upgrade

Compile the IDE using Visual Studio 2019 and resolve incompatibility issues.

SnapDevelop Roadmap

2021

    Focus Area:   Core    

• Informix DB

Support connecting to Informix DB2.

2022 (including revisions)

    Focus Area:   Cloud    

• Kubernetes deployment

Containerize and deploy apps to a Kubernetes cluster.

• Developing Node.js apps

Support developing with NodeJS to build server applications in JavaScript.

    Focus Area:   UI    

• Developing HTML apps

Support various HTML UI technologies, including HTML & CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

• Support leading HTML UI frameworks

Support leading HTML UI frameworks, including React, Angular, and Vue.

• Support Razor Pages

Support the development, compilation and deployment of Razor Pages in ASP.NET Core.

    Focus Area:   Core    

• Support .NET 6

Support .NET 6 for development, debugging, and deployment.

    Focus Area:   Dev Productivity    

• Cross-OS debugging and remote debugging

Debug apps running on Windows, Linux, and MacOS; or remotely debug apps running in a Docker container.

.NET Datastore Roadmap

2021

    Focus Area:   Core    

• Informix DB

Support connecting to Informix DB2.

2022 (including revisions)

    Focus Area:   Cloud    

• DRDS (Distributed Relational Database Service)

Support direct connection with DRDS.

    Focus Area:   Core    

• Enhancing data import/export

Refactor the import/export functions for achieving better performance.

• Enhancing JSON handling

Provide a JSON library directly in SnapObjects for better handling of JSON.

    Focus Area:   UI    

• DataWindow UI attributes

Support exporting DataWindow UI attributes to .NET DataStore.

Review Release History to Learn All the New Features!

You can expect to receive PowerBuilder releases in agile 6-12 month cycles.