## General Settings - Media File Options |

| On this tab of the General Settings step you enter general options regarding media file generation.

- | Only options with bold labels have to be filled in. The available options are: Media file output directory (required) the directory where the generated media files should be placed. If the project has already been saved, a relative directory will be interpreted as relative to the project file. Media file name pattern (required) the default rule for naming your media files. This text field should contain system compiler variables in order to be unique for each media file. If two media file names are equal, the build will fail. If the desired name for the media file cannot be obtained through the use of variables, you can override the media file name in the media wizard. Convert dots to underscores By default, dots ('.') will be converted to underscores ('_') when the media file name is evaluated. If you would like to keep all dots in your media file name, please de-select this option. Compression level The desired level of compression for your media files, chosen from a range of 1-9. "1" means least compressed and "9" means most compressed. Please note that extracting the media files will take longer for higher compression levels. Use LZMA compression LZMA compression achieves much better results, but is considerably slower, especially for compilation. LZMA compression is only used for installers and not for archives. Use Pack200 JAR compression Pack200 compression is a compression algorithm that's designed for JAR files and achieves exceptional results, especially for large JAR files. Since the Pack200 deflater is only included since JRE 1.5, this compression is only used if the minimum Java version requirement for your project is 1.5. If you have signed JAR files or JAR files that create a digest, please apply the `$JDK_HOME/bin/pack200` executable in your build process like
            pack200 --repack my.jar
before signing the JAR files. Pack200 rearranges JAR files but the reordering is idempotent, so this pack/unpack sequence creates a stable JAR file. Pack200 compression can be quite slow, Pack200 decompression is relatively fast. Pack200 compression is only used for installers and not for archives. To avoid problems with external JAR files, you can check the the "Exclude signed JARs or JARs creating digests" option. If you would like to exclude selected JAR files only, you can place an empty `*.nopack` file next to it. For example, if the jar file is named `app.jar`, then a file `app.jar.nopack` in the same directory will disable Pack200 compression for that file. File modification times You can choose between two ways to set the modification times of installed files: Keep original file modification times The original modification times are kept for the installed files. This is the default mode. Use build timestamp All installed files have the build time as the same modification time. Missing files at build time If some files or directories in the definition of the distribution tree are missing while the project is being compiled, install4j can take the following actions: Ignore Do not print any warnings and ignore. This setting is suitable if you intentionally add files or directories to your distribution tree that are no present for all builds. If the `Enable extra verbose output` option is selected on the Build step, the warning is still printed. Print a warning and continue This is the default setting. Raise an error and abort If missing files are not acceptable in your project, you should choose this option. If a missing file is encountered, the build will fail with a corresponding error message.

| A build will not be possible until all required fields have been completed. If a required field is missing when starting a build, this tab will be displayed with a warning message.