Using the GUI Client › Main GUI Client Panel (Module Panel) › Assembling › MSI Assembling

MSI Assembling

The MSI Assemble Details panels are a set of dialogs that allow packaging of both GUI and .NET applications. When you select Action, Assemble, the Build Tool Client looks at the content of the selected ICM and displays the appropriate dialogs. The output is an MSI file ready for installation on a Windows system. The possible dialogs follow:

• General (GUI and .NET)
• ASP.NET (.NET only)
• Global Assembly Cache (GAC) (.NET only)
• DataSources (.NET only)
• Tracing (.NET only)
• Additional Files (GUI and .NET)
• GUI (GUI only)
• Commands (GUI only)

Important! While assembling applications with dialects, select only one Load Module icm for each assembly. The non-dialect specific icm files should be selected with every dialect.

Note: We cannot build a large executable application based on more than one model.

For documentation purposes, the MSI .NET Assembly Details panels are illustrated when the dialogs are applicable for both .NET and GUI applications.

Both .NET and GUI applications are assembled from a selected set of load module (LM) and referential integrity trigger (RI) icm files. UNIX is not supported.

A major difference between .NET applications and GUI applications is that GUI assemblies can optionally include database design language (DDL) icm files, giving the installer the opportunity to create the associated database tables locally. If a DDL icm is included in the selections when the Assemble command is executed, the assembled MSI file will offer the installing user a Custom option to install the DDL feature. A Typical install and the default Custom install will not install the DDL. The installing user must choose the Custom install and then select DDL for local installation. The files necessary for the DDL feature are copied to the installing user's TempFolder. The DDL processing is done before any optional Commands. The stdout and stderr of the DDL processing is recorded in a log file on the user's desktop with the same basename as the MSI file and a .log extension. For DB2 DBMS applications, procedure binding is included after the data tables have been initialized.

Any options that are entered into the Assemble Details panels are stored in an assemble icm file. This file is re-read on each execution of the assemble command to initialize the panel fields. The assemble command is disabled if this assemble icm file is selected.