Media File Wizard: Customize Project Defaults


  In this step of the media file wizard you can customize a number of project settings on a per-media file basis. Customizable settings are displayed in sub-steps that can be selected with the Choose customization category button or by clicking into the index on the left side.
  The customization categories are:
  • Compiler variables

    Compiler variables that are defined on the Compiler Variables tab can be overridden on a per-media file basis. For example, this would be useful to adjust the native library directories in a launcher definition.

    The variable table shows 4 columns:
    • Override marker
      If you have overridden a variable by editing the value column, the first column will display a  marker to indicate that that variable has been overridden. In that case, the reset button column will display a button to restore the original value.
    • Variable name
      Shows the name of the variable.
    • Variable value
      Shows the value of the variable. This column is editable. To override the variable, double-click on the desired cell in this column and edit the value. The override marker column and the reset button column will then show that the variable has been overridden.
    • Reset button
      If a variable has been overridden, this column shows a Reset button that allows you to restore the original value as defined on the Compiler Variables tab.

    Overriding compiler variables on a per-media file basis is also possible from the command line and from the ant task.

  • Media file name

    The file name pattern defined in the Media File Options tab determines the actual name of the media file. If you want to override that pattern, you can enter an individual name here. To enter an individual name, select the custom name radio button and enter a file name in the text field below it.

  • Principal language

    By default, the language used by an installer is governed by the setting on the Languages tab. If you would like to generate installers with fixed languages, you leave those settings at their default values and override the principal language and custom localization file here.

    You can change the principal language for all media files or on a per-media file basis from the command line or from the ant task by defining the variable LANGUAGE_ID with the 2-letter ISO code of the desired language (see https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm).

  • Exclude components

    Here, you can select components that should not be distributed by selecting their attached check boxes. This is useful if you have installation components that do not work with specific media files, such as a Windows-only extension, for example.

  • Include downloadable components

    Sometimes, you want to create media files where installation components are included, that have been marked as downloadable for the entire project. This screens list all downloadable installation components as a flat list. All selected components are included in this media file. For example, this is useful if you want to offer a net installer and a full offline installer where some components should remain downloaded. For the media file of the full offline installer, you can mark all required components as included on this step.

  • Exclude files

    This step is useful to tailor your distribution to platform-specific needs. The distribution tree is shown in expanded form and shows all files. This is unlike the distribution tree in the Files step which shows the definition of the distribution tree.

    Each file and subdirectory has a check box attached. If you select that check box, the entry will not be distributed. Selections of subdirectories are recursive. If you select a subdirectory, its contents are hidden from the tree since they will be excluded anyway.

  • Exclude launchers

    This step is complementary to the "Exclude files" screen where launchers are not shown. Each launcher has a check box attached. If you select that check box, the launcher will not be generated.

  • Exclude installer elements

    If you some installer applications, screens or actions should not be included with this media file, you can exclude those elements by selecting their attached check boxes in the tree of installer elements. Note that for more complex cases you can also skip screens by entering a condition property for screens and actions.

    https://www.ej-technologies.com/download/install4j/changelog.html For archives, only custom installer applications are shown, since installer and uninstaller are not present for archives.

  • Auto-update options

    In this step you can override project-level settings for the creation of the update descriptor file updates.xml. If you add a files with comments, they will either override the files in the project-level configuration, or - if there is no project-level comment - set a comment for this media file only. The files with comments must be encoded in UTF-8. If you define attributes, they will override attributes with the same name in the project-level configuration or add new attributes for this media file only. Minimum and maximum updatable versions can also be overridden.

    If you discontinue certain media files, you will probably still want to add entries into the update descriptor file updates.xml, so that auto-updaters of installed applications that were installed by a discontinued media file can still download a new version. In that case, you can enter the IDs of the discontinued media files. For each ID, an update descriptor entry that mirrors that of the current media file will be added to the update descriptor. Auto-updaters from discontinued media files will then be redirected to download the current media file.