Starting PowerBuilder with an open workspace

When you start PowerBuilder, you may want to resume work on
an existing project. You can have PowerBuilder open the workspace
that you used last, and even open the painters you had open, with
the last Script view you touched open at the code you were working
on.

Using options in the development environment

There are three options on the Workspaces page of the System
Options dialog box that you can use to determine what displays when
you start PowerBuilder.

To open the System Options dialog box:

1. Select Tools>System Options from
   the menu bar.

Opening just the workspace

If you want PowerBuilder to open the last workspace you used
at startup, check Reopen Workspace at Startup.

Opening the workspace, painters, and scripts

If you want PowerBuilder to open the last workspace you used and the
painters and editors you were using, check Reopen Workspace on Startup
and Reload Painters When Opening Workspace. When you open PowerBuilder,
any painters and editors that were open when you closed PowerBuilder
are reloaded. If you edited a script before closing PowerBuilder,
the Script view is scrolled to show the last line you edited.

Opening with no workspace

If you want PowerBuilder to open without loading a workspace,
clear Reopen Workspace on Startup. If you want the painters and
editors that were open when you last used a workspace to be reloaded
when you reopen it, clear Reopen Workspace on Startup and check
Reload Painters When Opening Workspace.

Displaying the Welcome dialog box

If you want to see the Welcome to PowerBuilder dialog box
when you start PowerBuilder, check Show Start Dialog at Startup
with no Workspace and clear Reopen Workspace at Startup. The Welcome
to PowerBuilder dialog box is shown in “The PowerBuilder environment”.

Using a workspace file

Double-click a workspace file in Windows Explorer. Workspaces
have a .pbw extension. PowerBuilder starts
with the workspace open.

Using command line arguments

You can start
PowerBuilder from a command line (or the Windows Run dialog box)
and optionally open a workspace, target, and/or painter.
These are the painters and tools you can open:

• Application painter
• Database painter
• Data Pipeline painter
• DataWindow painter
• Debugger
• File Editor
• Function painter
• Library painter
• Menu painter
• Query painter
• Structure painter
• User Object painter
• Window painter

The syntax is:

where directory is the fully qualified
name of the directory containing PowerBuilder.

You can also add one or more of the following options to the
command line after /painter paintername to
open a specific object or create a new one:

The syntax statements show the long form of option names.
You need only use the initial letter or letters of the option name
as long as the option is uniquely identified, as shown in Table 2-1.

Table 2-1: Command-line options for opening PowerBuilder

Option	Description
/W workspacepath	Opens the workspace workspacepath. The default is the most recently used workspace if you have selected the Reopen Workspace on Startup check box in the System Options dialog box. If you have not selected this check box, you must specify the /W option before specifying any other options.
/T targetpath	Opens the target targetpath.
/P paintername	Opens the painter paintername. The default is the window that displays when you begin a new PowerBuilder session. The painter name must uniquely identify the painter. You do not have to enter the entire name. For example, you can enter q to open the Query painter and datab to open the Database painter. If you enter the full name, omit any spaces in the name (enter UserObject and DataPipeline, for example). The painter name is not case sensitive. To open the file editor, you could set paintername to FI or fileeditor. Except for the /W, /T, and /L switches, other switches must follow /P paintername on the command line, as shown in the examples after the table.
/OU outputpath	Logs the contents of the Output window to outputpath.
/L libraryname	Identifies the library that contains the object you want to open. The default is the library specified in the DefLib variable in the [PB] section of the PowerBuilder initialization file.
/O objectname	Identifies the object, such as a DataWindow object or window, you want to open.
/I objectname	Identifies the object you want to inherit from.
/N	Creates a new DataWindow object.
/R	Runs the DataWindow object specified with /O and allows designing.
/RO	Runs the DataWindow object specified with /O but does not allow designing.
/A arguments	Provides arguments for the specified DataWindow object.

Examples

The following examples assume that the location of the PowerBuilder executable
file is in your system path.

This example starts a PowerBuilder session by opening the
Window painter in the Client PBL in the Math workspace. The output
of the session is sent to a file called math.log.
The workspace file, the PBL, and the log file are all in the current
directory:

Enter this command to start PowerBuilder and open the DataWindow
object called d_emp_report in
the workspace Emp.pbw:

Building from the command line You can also build and deploy a workspace from the command
line. For more information, see “Building workspaces”.

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