About building PowerBuilder targets
You can build many types of targets with PowerBuilder. For
traditional client/server applications, you need to create
an executable version of your target that you can deploy to users’ computers.
If you are building a distributed application with PowerBuilder,
you typically build a client executable file and a server component
that you can deploy to a transaction server. For some types of distributed
applications, you need to build proxy objects.
Using the Project painter
You use the Project painter to create and maintain PowerBuilder
projects that build all these different objects. The Project painter
allows you to streamline the generation of the files your target
needs and to rebuild easily when you make changes. There is a wizard
to help you set up each project type.
Table 34-1 lists
the types of projects you can create and what you can build using
the project.
| Project | What it builds |
|---|---|
| Application | An executable file and optional dynamic libraries. |
| Application Server Component | One or more application server components based on custom class user objects that are deployed to a J2EE-compliant application server and can be used with any application server client or component. |
| Application Server Proxy | One or more proxy objects (stubs) that can be used by a PowerBuilder client to access functions in application server components. The application server components can be built with PowerBuilder or another development tool. |
| EAServer Component | One or more EAServer components based on custom class user objects that are deployed to EAServer and can be used with any EAServer client or component. |
| EAServer Proxy | One or more proxy objects (stubs) that can be used by a PowerBuilder client to access functions in EAServer components. The EAServer components can be built with PowerBuilder or another development tool. |
| EJB Client Proxy | One or more proxy objects (stubs) that can be used by a PowerBuilder client to access functions in an EJB component on an application server. |
| .NET Assembly | A .NET assembly containing one or more custom class user objects. |
| .NET Web Forms Application | An application that can be deployed to ASP.NET. |
| .NET Web Service | A .NET Web service containing one or more custom class user objects. |
| .NET Windows Forms Application | An application that can be deployed to .NET as a Windows Forms application and optionally published to a Web, file, or FTP server as a smart client application. |
| Web DW Container | An EAServer component that contains your DataWindow definitions and is deployed to EAServer. It uses the interface of the generic Web DataWindow server component. |
| Web Service Proxy | A proxy object that can be used by a PowerBuilder client to invoke a Web service defined in a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) file. |
For how to create a new project, see “Creating a project”. For more
information about .NET projects, see Deploying Applications
and Components to .NET
.
Building executable files
If you are building an executable file, there are two basic
ways to package the application:
- As one standalone executable file that contains all the objects
in the application - As an executable file and one or more dynamic libraries
that contain objects that are linked at runtime
Read the chapter on packaging your application for deployment
in Application Techniques
to get an understanding
of the best way for you to package the application. Then follow
the procedures in “Defining an executable application
project” to implement your strategy.
Building other types of targets
For an overview of how you use the Project painter to build
different types of components, see “Building components, proxies,
and .NET targets”.
Providing other resources
You might need to provide additional resources that your target
uses, such as bitmaps and icons. There are two ways to provide resources:
- Distribute them separately
- Include them in a PowerBuilder resource file (PBR)
and build an executable, a dynamic library, or a component using
the resource file
For more information, see “Distributing resources “.
Building the workspace
You can build and deploy all the targets in your workspace
using buttons on the PowerBar, pop-up menus in the System Tree,
or a command line. For more information, see “Building workspaces”.