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.

**Table 34-1: Project types**
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.
Automation Server	An automation server (formerly called an OLE automation server) based on a custom class user object that can be used with COM-enabled clients.
COM/COM+ Component	A COM server based on one or more custom class user objects that can be deployed to COM+ and/or used with COM-enabled clients.
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”.