About PowerBuilder .NET Windows Forms applications
PowerBuilder applications that have a rich user interface
that relies on resources available on the client computer, such
as a complex MDI design, graphics, or animations, or that perform
intensive data entry or require a rapid response time, make good
candidates for deployment as .NET Windows Forms applications. For
a comparison of design considerations between Web Forms and Windows
Forms applications, see “Choosing a .NET application
target “.
Adapting an existing application
The changes required to transform a PowerBuilder application
into a Windows Forms application depend on the nature of the application,
the scripting practices used to encode the application functionality,
and the number of properties, functions, and events the application
uses that are not supported in the .NET Windows Forms environment.
For a list of restrictions, most of which apply to both Windows
and Web Forms applications, see Chapter 16, “Best
Practices for .NET Projects.”
For tables of unsupported and partially supported objects,
controls, functions, events, and properties, see Chapter 11, “Unsupported Features in Windows
Forms Projects.”
Setting up a target and project
You set up a target for a .NET Windows Forms application using
the wizard on the Target page of the New dialog box. You can start
from scratch and create a new library and new objects, use an existing
application object and library, or use the application object and
library list of an existing target.
You define some of the characteristics of the deployed application
in the .NET Windows Forms Application wizard. Additional properties
are set in the Project painter. For more information, see “Creating a .NET Windows
Forms target”, “Creating a .NET Windows
Forms project”, and “Setting properties for a
.NET Windows Forms project”.
Smart client applications
One of the choices you can make in the wizard or Project painter
is whether the application will be deployed as a smart client application.
A smart client application can work either online (connected to
distributed resources) or offline, and can take advantage of “intelligent
update” technology for deployment and maintenance. For
more information, see Chapter 10, “Intelligent Deployment
and Update.”
Deploying from the Project painter
When you deploy a PowerBuilder application from the .NET Windows
Forms Project painter, PowerBuilder builds an executable file and
deploys it along with any PBLs, PBDs, resources, .NET assemblies,
and other DLLs that the application requires. For more information,
see “Deploying the project from
PowerBuilder “.
Deploying to a production environment
The simplest way to deploy a Window Forms application to a
production environment is to use smart client deployment. If you
cannot or do not want to use smart client deployment, use the following
procedure to install the application.
To deploy a .NET Windows Forms application:
-
Install .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5
on the target computer. -
Generate a PowerBuilder .NET components MSI file
using the PowerBuilder Runtime Packager.For more information about using the Runtime Packager, see
the chapter on deploying applications and components in Application
Techniques
. -
Install the generated MSI file on the target computer
and restart the computer. -
Copy the output from the build directory to the
target computer. -
Install any required database client software
and configure related DSNs. -
If necessary, register ActiveX controls used by
your application.
For information about requirements for deployed applications,
see “Checklist for deployment”.
Using preprocessor symbols
If you share PBLs among different kinds of target, such as
a target for a standard PowerBuilder application and a Windows Forms
target, you might want to write code that applies to a specific
target. For example, use the following template to enclose a block
of code that should be parsed by the pb2cs code
emitter in a Windows Forms target and ignored by the PowerScript compiler:
|
1 |
#if defined PBWINFORM then<br /> /*action to be performed in a Windows Forms target*/<br />#else<br /> /*other action*/<br />#end if |
You can use the Paste Special>Preprocessor pop-up
menu item in the Script view to paste a template into a script.
For more information about using preprocessor symbols, see “About conditional compilation”.