Build and distribute Products
Once your product has its attributes and build specifications properly configured, it's time to build it and distribute it to your end-users.
By using BLT to build and distribute your LabVIEW application, you can automatically perform the following tasks:
•Build your product executable: This executable will contain everything needed for licensing, automatic updates, error tracking, etc...
•Compress your application into a single zip archive: This allow an easier distribution of product updates to your end-users.
•Include your splash screen and color scheme configuration with your product.
•Upload your product update to your Product Updates Server.
•Generate a new version for your product in BLT for LabVIEW.
•Notify your existing users that a product update is available: They will be able to automatically download it and install it. You can also include post-update actions to execute.
•Generate a product installer for your new users: You can include your application and any applying Run-Time Engine in a single installer file.
The following sections will explain you how to build and distribute your product with BLT for LabVIEW as well as managing your product versions:
Important information below!
•When you build a product with BLT for LabVIEW, it basically scripts LabVIEW to execute the following operations in background:
oOpen your Project (if not already opened).
oLoad the exe build specifications configured with BLT. By configuring your exe build specifications with BLT, you make sure that it includes everything required for licensing, automatic updates, etc...
oModify the build specifications and set the right product version.
oBuild the exe build specifications configured with BLT.
•To work with BLT, your exe build specifications must be configured with the following exclusions (BLT takes care of this for you before building your exe):
oDo not disconnect inline sub-VIs.
oDo not disconnect type definitions.
oDo not remove unused polymorphic VIs instances.
oRemove unused members of project libraries.
oDo not modify project library files after removing unused members.
•Everything contained in your build destination directory will be included with your product when distributed with BLT. Make sure that you don't store testing files or anything not useful for your product in this directory.
•While you are building an executable with BLT, it is recommended to not use LabVIEW to avoid getting build errors.