Yakov Werde

Today I was doing housekeeping chores on a PowerBuilder .NET application. I was moving libraries from one folder to another. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that what used to be a simple chore is now a more time-consuming operation.

In good ol' Classic, after moving the PBLs, with the IDE closed (or the target now in the current workspace), I'd edit the Library list in the PBT file to reflect the PBL's new folder path, reopen the target and voilà, change done! Perhaps in a worst case scenario, I'd copy the PBL and then edit the Library List in the IDE by simply changing the PBL path in the text edit box.

No more! As you can see from the accompanying screenshot. The Library List in the PBTX file is encrypted. That means that even though it is plainly visible in the text-based PBTx file, you just can't simply edit it any more. What's even more restricting is the IDE Library List editor is now a pick list. You can't edit the list directly. So the process of modifying a library location has you clicking a button to delete a library, then clicking another button to choose a library using the file chooser dialog.

This seeming enhancement is inconvenient at the least and tends to be somewhat annoying. Noticing that this is how the PBTX is in version 12.0 & 12.5 I'm guessing that it's here to stay.