This section discusses the process of creating an application distribution that includes the files necessary to run IDL, allowing you to distribute your application to users who do not already have IDL installed.

If your IDL application will be run in an installation with an IDL development license, you do not need to create an IDL distribution. Just package your application files (either .pro files or .sav files, and any necessary data files) and distribute them to your users along with instructions describing how to install and launch the application.

If you intend to distribute your application to users who do not have an existing IDL installation, or to have your application run directly from removable media such as a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, you must create a runtime distribution. A runtime distribution contains the IDL executable files, dynamically-loaded library files, and resource files needed to execute an IDL application that has been packaged in an application .sav file.

The steps involved in creating a runtime distribution include:

• Creating a Distribution Using MAKE_RT
• Working with the Manifest File
• Runtime Application Launch Scripts
• Distributing IDL Applications on Removable Media