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.

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 Packaging an 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 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.