When you have completed reports, forms, or data pipelines, you can bundle them in an executable file to create a reporting and database-maintenance application. The reports, forms, and pipelines in an application are usually related by topic, but they need not be. You can bundle any reports, forms, and pipelines you want.
In InfoMaker, you create applications using a wizard accessed in the Library painter. The wizard prompts you for the reports, forms, and pipelines you want to include and for other aspects of the application such as the icon to be used to represent the application.
No queries
InfoMaker applications do not include queries, which also
display in the Library painter.
Most applications can be identified by selecting Help>About to display information about the application, such as its name, name of the company producing the application, version, and so on. After you create an application, you can modify the application’s initialization file so that your users see customized information.
For information about identifying your application, see “Identifying your application”.
You can run the application the same way you run other Windows applications. After you start the application, you can run the reports and forms and pipelines included in the application.
Having the ability to execute pipelines in an application is particularly useful for mobile users working on laptops that are often not connected to a corporate database. You can pipe a corporate database to the laptop, use forms to update the database, and run reports against the local database. Then you can pipe the local data to the corporate database.
For information about executing a pipeline in an application and modifying the pipeline definition from the application, see “Using a pipeline in an application”.
An application can be for your personal use only, but you can also distribute it to others to use. Users can run your application outside the InfoMaker environment. Having InfoMaker installed is not required.
The requirements for distributing an application with a pipeline differ from the requirements for distributing an application with only forms and reports because pipelines can modify the database by adding and dropping tables.
For information about distributing InfoMaker applications to others, see Chapter 22, “Deploying Your Application.”
