Step 6: Build The Project

  In the Build step, all defined media files are generated. There are three different build modes:
  •  Regular build
     
    Build the media files and place them in the media file output directory.
  •  Dry run
     
    Build the media files in the temporary directory only. This mode allows you to check whether your configuration is ok while not making any changes to your file system.
  •  Test installer
     

    This build mode is intended for testing changes that you make in the installer configuration, such as adding, removing or modifying screens, actions and form components.

    The action looks for the first media file in the media step that can be run on the current platform and has an installer media file type. The media file must be already built, otherwise the action will terminate with an error message.

    All scripts are recompiled and the installer configuration files are regenerated. The installed files are taken from the full build of the media file. If you change the definition of the distribution tree and expect to see these changes in the installer, you have to rebuild the media file with a regular build.

    At the end, the installer is started, so you can try out your changes immediately. With respect to a full build, the compilation time is reduced substantially to a couple of seconds, while a full build can take several minutes, depending on the amount of files that are included and the selected type of compression.

When a build or a test build is started, important status messages are displayed in the text area labeled build output. A progress bar appears in the status bar of install4j's main menu which indicates what percentage of the total build has been completed so far. The build process is asynchronous, so you can change to other steps while it is running. The status bar will inform you when the build process has finished.

  With the Build selection section you can choose which media files should actually be built. This can be useful for testing purposes, or if you have defined media files that should not be built by default.

With the standard setting, all media files will be built. If you select the radio button build selected, only the media files that are selected in the adjacent list will be built.

These settings are persistent and are saved in your project file, however, when you build from the command line, your build selection will be ignored unless you specify a special parameter. Please see the help on the command line compiler options for further details.

  Also, have a look at the available build options.