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General page
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App name
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Specify a name for the
application.
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PBR file name
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(Optional) Specify a PowerBuilder resource file
(PBR) for your application if you dynamically reference
resources (such as bitmaps and icons) in your scripts and you
want the resources included in the application instead of
having to distribute the resources separately.
You
can type the name of a PBR file in the box or click the button
next to the box to browse your directories for the PBR file
you want to include. The PBR file as well as the resources it
references must reside in the application directory or
subdirectory; and only relative paths of the PBR file and the
resources will be accepted.
For more about PBRs,
see the section called “Distributing resources” in Users Guide.
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Windows classic style
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Select this to add a manifest file to the
application that specifies the appearance of the controls as
an application resource.
By default, this option
is not selected, which means the Windows flat style is used
and the 3D effect of some controls will be removed to have a
“flat” look, for example, the 3D lowered border of Column and
Computed Field in the DataWindow object, the background color
of Button, the BackColor and TextColor of tooltip, and the
TabBackColor of tab header will not take effect. If you still
want the 3D effect, you should select the “Windows classic
style” option when deploying the application.
Note
If you have applied a theme to the application, you
should not check the “Enable Windows Classic Style in the
IDE” option in the System Options or the “Windows classic
style” option in the project painter and the PB.INI file
(if any) should not contain such setting, otherwise, the
application UI will be rendered in the Windows classic
style instead of the selected theme.
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Rebuild
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Specify either Full or Incremental to indicate
whether you want PowerClient to regenerate and redeploy all
object files to the Web server. If you choose Incremental,
PowerClient regenerates and redeploys only objects that have
changed, and objects that reference any objects that have
changed, since the last time you built the
application.
As a precaution, regenerate all
objects before rebuilding your project.
It is
strongly recommended that you always select Full if you build
and deploy the project to the production
environment.
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Enable DEBUG symbol
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Select to enable any code that you placed in
DEBUG conditional code blocks. For more information, see
the section called “Using the DEBUG preprocessor symbol” in Users Guide.
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Encrypt all the compiled p-code
files
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Select whether to encrypt the object files when
compiled from the PowerBuilder dynamic
libraries.
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Platform
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Select if the application can run on 32-bit or
64-bit machines.
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Manifest Information
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Select whether to generate a manifest file
(either external or embedded) and to set the execution level
of the application.
For further information, see
the section called “Attaching or embedding manifest files” in Users Guide.
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Properties displayed for
executable
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Specify your own values for the Product name,
Company name, Description, Copyright, Product version, and
File version fields associated with the application file and
with machine-code DLLs. These values become part of the
Version resource associated with the application file, and
most of them display on the Version tab page of the Properties
dialog box for the file in Windows Explorer. The Product and
File version string fields can have any format.
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Executable version used by
installer
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Specify the product version and file version (in
numeric values) that will be used by Microsoft Installer to
determine whether a file needs to be updated.
The
four numbers can be used to represent the major version, minor
version, point release, and build number of your product. They
must all be present. If your file versioning system does not
use all these components, you can replace the unused numbers
with zeros. The maximum value for any of the numbers is
65535.
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Libraries page
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Specify a PBR file for a dynamic library if it
uses resources (such as bitmaps and icons) and you want the
resources included in the dynamic library instead of having to
distribute the resources separately.
You can type
the name of a PBR file in the box or click the button next to
the box to browse your directories for the PBR file you want
to include. The PBR file as well as the resources it
references must reside in the application directory or
subdirectory; and only relative paths of the PBR file and the
resources will be accepted.
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External Files
page
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Specify the custom user external files and/or the
resource files that are referenced in the PowerScript. Make
sure all these files are placed in the same folder or
sub-folder of the application target (.pbt) file.
Files preloaded as
compressed packages and Files
preloaded in uncompressed format
The
custom user external files will be downloaded from the server
before the application starts. It is recommended that you
deploy the files which stay unchanged most of the time (such
as UI theme files) as one compressed package, so that it can
be transferred faster; and deploy the files which may be
modified frequently (such as INI files) as individual files,
or deploy them as a separate package.
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To deploy files as one compressed package, select
Files preloaded as compressed
packages from the list box, then click
Create Package to
create a package, and then click Add Folder or Add Files to add the folder or
files under this package.
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To deploy files as individual files, select
Files preloaded in uncompressed
format from the list box, and then click
Add Folder or Add Files to add the folder or
files under it.
The custom user external files may
include the following:
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INI files (including pb.ini, pblab.ini, pbodb.ini
etc.)
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DLL/OCX files (requiring no administrator rights
to register)
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XML files or image files used by the UI theme or
external functions
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text files, PDF files or any other files used by
the external function
Images/videos
dynamically loaded
The resource files
(such as images, videos etc.) are downloaded from the server
at the moment when they are used by the application. You can
select Images/videos dynamically
loaded and then click Add
Folder or Add
Files to add the folder or files under
it.
Note
The read-only files added under Files preloaded in uncompressed
format or Images/videos
dynamically loaded will lose its read-only
attribute after transferred to the server via FTP. This
seems to be a common issue with FTP transfer.
DLL & OCX
Registration
If the DLL/OCX files need
to be registered and can be registered by Regsvr32 or Regasm
without requiring the administrator rights, you can click
DLL & OCX Registration to
select the DLL/OCX files so that they can be registered by
Regsvr32 or Regasm automatically before the application
starts; if the DLL/OCX files need to be registered but cannot
be registered by Regsvr32 or Regasm or they need to be
registered using administrator rights, you can specify the
registration commands in Preload
Event in the Run
Options tab.
INI
Configuration
When the application is
updated, the INI file can be updated with the specified
strategy. Click the INI
Configuration button and then select one or more
INI file and configure the strategy for them at one time; or
select and configure for the INI file one by
one.
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Overwrite update — The INI file on the client
will be updated if the INI file downloaded from the
server has been updated, and changes made to the local
INI file will be lost.
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Merge update — The INI file on the client will be
merged with the INI file downloaded from the server, so
changes made to the local INI file will be preserved and
merged into the INI file downloaded from the server. But
notice that any setting that exists in the local INI
file while does not exist in the downloaded INI file
will be removed.
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Do not update — Once the INI file is downloaded
to the client, it shall never be updated with the INI
file downloaded from the server.
Note
The external files cannot contain any file that has
the same name as the application, or the PBD or p-code
file to be generated, otherwise duplicate name error
occurs.
For example, [appname].exe, [appname].xml,
[appname].manifest file etc. cannot be added to External
Files.
For another example, test.pbl will be deployed as
test.pbd, therefore, test.pbd cannot be added to External
Files.
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Runtime page
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Select the runtime files according to the
features used in the application. The files will be downloaded
from the server to the client, for the application to
run.
The deployment tool does not actually deploy
the files, instead it notifies the application to download
such files (corresponding to the runtime version displayed)
from the server directly. The runtime version displayed on
this page can be configured in the IDE > System Options
dialog. And you will need to make sure the corresponding
version of PowerBuilder Runtime is uploaded to the server when
you upload the Cloud App Launcher to the
server.
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Signing page
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Select whether to digitally sign the application
executable file
(appname.exe).
If you want to
digitally sign the application executable file, you can
specify the settings required for signing under the “Use the
SignTool utility from the Windows SDK” option, for example,
SignTool location, signing certificate, certificate password,
signature algorithm, and URL of the time stamp server. And
make sure Microsoft’s SignTool has been installed on the
current machine.
Or you can place the signing
scripts in a file (with file extension as .cmd) and then
select the file for the “Use your own signing script” option.
For example, to sign the application executable file
(appname.exe) using Microsoft’s SignTool,
you may create a cmd file that includes the following
scripts:
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signtool.exe sign /f mycert.pfx /p password /d "My application" /du http://www.mytest.com /fd sha256 /tr "http://timestamp.digicert.com" /td sha256 mytest.exe |
After
the executable file is generated and before it is deployed to
the server, PowerBuilder will sign the executable file using
your own signing scripts or using the SignTool settings you
specified.
Make sure the PowerBuilder user has the
appropriate rights to access the time stamp server and sign
files.
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Deployment page
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Deployment Server
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Select to deploy the application to a local
server or a remote server. If you have not configured the
server yet, click the Server
Configuration button and follow instructions in
Configuring a
deployment server to configure the
server.
If the option “Check the availability of
Cloud App Launcher on the server during the deployment
process” is selected, the deployment process will be
terminated if no Cloud App Launcher is detected on the target
server.
Click the Upload
Cloud App Launcher button to upload the app
launcher and runtime files to the same server or directory
where app files will be deployed. For detailed instructions,
refer to Uploading
the app launcher and runtime files.
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Deployment version
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The deployment version number is used by the
server to determine whether to perform an install or update
for the application.
It is recommended to
increment the deployment version number every time when the
application is updated and re-deployed.
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Available time and Expiration time
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Schedule the time for the deployment version to
be accessible or inaccessible to end
users.
However, if the available time or
expiration time is reached and the app is still open, the app
will not get updated, until the app is closed or the session
times out. Therefore, it is recommended that the session
timeout feature should be enabled (for apps deployed via
PowerServer) or implemented manually (for apps deployed via
PowerClient).
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Minimum compatible version
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Specify the lowest compatible version for the
application. If the current version installed is older than
it, a forced update will be performed, or the application will
stop running.
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Update strategy
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Specify the update strategy for the
application.
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Always update: always performs updates before
application startup. If checks for updates fail, then
the application will not start.
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Update when connected: performs updates before
application startup. If checks for updates fail, then
the current version installed on the client will be
running.
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Never update: never checks or performs updates
once after the application is installed on the
client.
However, if the “Prompt to upgrade when the
application deployment version is invalid” option is
selected, and if the application installed on the client
is older than the minimum compatible version, or is
detected as expired according to the expiration time,
the user will get prompts to update the
application.
And make sure appropriate session timeout is
implemented otherwise the update strategy will not take
effect if the app is open.
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Download options
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Specify when to download the application files
(other than those specified in the External Files page) —
before the application starts or at the moment when they are
called by the application at runtime.
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App entry page settings
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Specify which mode (with or without background
service) will be run by default when the user accesses the
application by inputting
http://IPAddress/AppName.
IMPORTANT: This
setting must be consistent with the app launcher which is
uploaded to the server, otherwise the application will fail to
run. If you have changed the mode and uploaded the launcher
again, make sure you also change the mode here accordingly,
and ask the end user to clear the browser cache if the app
launcher fail to run on the client.
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If you have uploaded the app launcher with background service, then you
should select “Startup with
background service” (and keep “Deploy
auto.html…” selected and “Deploy manual.html…”
unselected).
In such case, the user can input
http://IPAddress/AppName
or
http://IPAddress/AppName/auto.html
to access the application.
The user should not input
http://IPAddress/AppName/manual.html,
otherwise it will lead to a “page not found” error or an
infinite searching for files.
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If you have uploaded the app launcher without background service, then
you should select “Startup without
background service” (and keep “Deploy
manual.html…” selected and “Deploy auto.html…”
unselected).
In such case, the user can input
http://IPAddress/AppName
or
http://IPAddress/AppName/manual.html
to access the application.
The user should not input
http://IPAddress/AppName/auto.html,
otherwise it will lead to a “page not found” error or an
infinite searching for files.
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If you have uploaded the app launcher with and without background
service, then you can choose the default startup mode
between “Startup with background service” and “Startup
without background service” and then select both the
“Deploy manual.html…” and “Deploy auto.html…”
options.
In such case, the user can input
http://IPAddress/AppName/manual.html
to run the application without background service, and
input
http://IPAddress/AppName/auto.html
to run the application with background service; or input
http://IPAddress/AppName
to run the application in the default startup
mode.
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Run Options page
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Commandline arguments
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Specify the command line arguments for the
application. The arguments will be directly passed to the
application when the application is run. And the arguments
will be automatically saved and updated to the app startup
icon on the desktop and the app shortcut menu in Windows
start.
The arguments specified here cannot be
modified at runtime. If you want to modify the argument at
runtime, you can specify the argument in the application URL
(for example,
http://localhost/salesdemo/?arg=1).
You can also
pass arguments to the EXE directly. If there are multiple
arguments, please include them in quotation marks or separate
them with a delimiter (instead of a space), for
example,
C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingPBAppsApplicationslocalhost_<appname><appname>.exe
“parm1 parm2
parm3”
C:Users<username>AppDataRoamingPBAppsApplicationslocalhost_<appname><appname>.exe
parm1/parm2/parm3
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Create shortcut(s)
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Specify whether to create an application shortcut
icon on the client desktop and/or create an application
shortcut menu in the Windows start menu.
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Show the loading animation before the app
runs
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Specify whether to show an animation (as shown
below) when the application prepares for startup. The
animation will disappear when the application’s first window
displays.
This option should not be selected if
the application starts with no user interface; otherwise the
animation will not disappear.
You can deploy your own animation to replace
the default animation (as shown above). To deploy your own
animation,
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Prepare a GIF format of your animation and name
the file as “loading_ica.gif“. Only GIF format
is supported currently.
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Place “loading_ica.gif” under the same
directory as the application target (.pbt) file.
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Add “loading_ica.gif” under Files preloaded as compressed
packages or Files
preloaded in uncompressed format in the
External Files
page.
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Validate the application integrity before the app
runs
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Specify whether to validate the hash of every
object file before they are loaded, so that files changed
illegally will not be run.
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Preload Event
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(Optional) Specify the commands that will be
executed immediately after files are downloaded and before the
application starts. For example, you can specify commands to
register DLL/OCX files that cannot be registered by Regsrv32
or Regasm or require administrator rights to register; or any
other commands that need to be executed with administrator
rights.
If the commands need to be executed with
the administrator rights, you should select the Run as administrator
option.
You can specify how often the commands
should be executed: for only one time when the application is
launched for the first time or when the application is
updated, or every time when the application
runs.
The commands can be any Windows commands or
user-defined commands.
For example, suppose there
is a DLL file from the application that needs to be registered
on the client, you can enter the following
commands:
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cd /d "C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv4.0.30319" regasm "%AppData%AppeonPBClouddemo.appeon.com_app1EncryptDecryptClass.dll" /tlb:testappeon.tlb /codebase /nologo |
Note that as the
commands are executed silently, any commands that will pause
the execution and wait for user input will cause the
application to wait endlessly.
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Running app from IDE
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Specify how the application can be launched from
the PowerBuilder IDE (when you select the Run PowerClient Project button in the
toolbar or from right-clicking the PowerClient project in the
System Tree).
You can specify the host name, port
number, connection type (HTTP or HTTPS), and/or arguments. You
can also specify to start the application from the Cloud App
Launcher if the Cloud App Launcher is installed, or from a Web
browser if the Cloud App Launcher is not already installed. If
the Cloud App Launcher is not installed on the current
machine, even if you have specified to start the application
from the Cloud App Launcher, the Web browser will start to
install the Cloud App Launcher and run the
application.
The arguments specified here will be
appended to the application URL and then passed to the
application via the URL, for example,
http://localhost/salesdemo/?arg1&arg2.
Note
that the arguments appended to the application URL cannot
contain special characters such as “?”, “#”, as they have
special meanings in HTML URL; if you want to use these
characters in the argument name or value, you can specify them
in the Commandline arguments
as static arguments on this same page, so that they can be
passed to the application directly instead of being sent as
part of the URL.
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