PowerBuilder® 11.2 introduces AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) update functionality for Web Forms applications. With ASP.NET AJAX, Web Forms pages are updated by refreshing individual regions of each page asynchronously.
Asynchronous postbacks enhance application performance by minimizing the content requested from the Web server and rendered again in the client browser. The rest of the Web page remains unchanged, therefore data traffic and page flickering are significantly reduced.
The AJAX enhancement for Web Forms applications does not require any changes in the PowerBuilder IDE. To use the AJAX feature, you do not need to learn anything new or alter your PowerScript® code.
However, PowerBuilder cannot deploy a Web Forms application unless AJAX is installed on the Web server. You can download and install the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Extensions version 1.0 on both the development and deployment computers from the ASP.NET Web site.
For information on how Web Forms applications work with AJAX extensions, see the chapter on “Overview and Configuration of .NET Targets” in the Deploying Applications and Components to .NET book.
Using synchronous update functionality
If you must use synchronous update functionality, you can
change the PBPostbackType global property to “Synchronous” in
the Web.config file that PowerBuilder creates
when you deploy your Web Forms application. However, support for
synchronous update functionality will be removed in future releases
of PowerBuilder and you cannot modify the PBPostbackType property in
the PowerBuilder IDE.
For information on global properties, see the chapter on “Properties for .NET Web Forms” in the Deploying Application and Components to .NET book. For information on modifying the Web.config file, see the section on “Viewing and modifying global properties in IIS Manager” in the same book.
