LESSON FOUR
BUILD YOUR FIRST STANDALONE EXECUTABLE

The programs you have created so far can only be run inside the Dark Basic editor. If you want to run them outside of Dark Basic you will need to build your program as a standalone executable. Not only are executables independent, they can also protect your source code and media files from being used separately.

Media files are very important, especially in games. Media files are your bitmaps, sounds, music, animations, 3d objects and data files that are used to make up the sounds and visuals of your program.

There are two types of standalone executable. The first type does not save media files with your executable and the second type does. As our second program uses media files, we shall use the second type.

If you go to the editor, your second program should still be listed. Press F7 to select the Build Final dialogue and click in the filename box to enter a name for your executable file. Click the BUILD button to build your executable file and then return to the help.

Select LESSON FIVE to discover how to locate and run your executable file.