
Select interface theme

With Paquet Builder you have two choices for the style of the package's user interface (dialog boxes that end users interact with). You can configure this user interface using the options of this page.

the Standard (or traditional) interface is a sequence of dialog boxes like in the old versions of Paquet Builder. End users access to the next dialog box after having clicked OK on the previous one. The major inconvenient is that end users cannot return to a previous dialog once they clicked OK. This interface type is however efficient and several times enough for some users.
the Wizard interface is an interface introduced with Paquet Builder version 2.7. Packages display a wizard-styled interface (a standard window with the famous navigation buttons Next and Back...) like the ones you can find in Windows 2000, XP, 2003... This interface type is efficient, looks intuitive and familiar to end users. Wizards allow them to navigate through the different steps before and after extracting files. They however can increase the final package size as they use additional graphics.

You need to select which interface theme you wish to use depending on the purpose of your package.

Here are two screen shots:

Wizard archive interface

Standard archive interface

Some of the following options are accessible only depending on which interface you select.

Wizard Options

Wizard-styled packages have the following additional settings:

Wizard text label: you can specify the text that will be displayed on the wizard near the navigation buttons (see the screen shot above). Generally it is your company name or maybe your Web site domain name.
Splash bitmap: defines a custom splash picture on the left side like standard Windows wizards. You can change this picture by specifying a new bitmap file into the field. If this field is left blank, Paquet Builder will use the default picture.
You can also click on the Browse button to select one of the shipped bitmap files (in the Resources sub-folder).
Information about the bitmap file:
Height: 310 pixels.
Width: 150 pixels.
Colors: 8bits per pixel, indexed - is recommended (to reduce the size of the final bitmap file).

Banner bitmap: (see screen shot above: this picture is shown in the white banner where instructions to users also appear in. You can change this picture by specifying a new bitmap file into the field. If this field is left blank, Paquet Builder will use the default picture.
You can also click on the Browse button to select one of the shipped bitmap files (in the Resources sub-folder).

Information about the bitmap file:

Height: 55 pixels.
Width: 90 pixels.
Colors: 8bits per pixel, indexed - is recommended (to reduce the size of the final bitmap file).
Background: white (but you can also create gradients).

In case you do not want the default picture to be used, you can let Paquet Builder create a custom bitmap from the package's icon: enable the "Generate a default logo from the package icon" option. In this case, Paquet Builder will read the specified icon file (if no custom one is specified, the default package icon is used), search for the more appropriate image inside the icon file (it first looks for 48x48 images, then 32x32 images).

Notes:

The result is similar to the packages that were created with Paquet Builder 2.7.
These two samples give you a preview of what you can get using this feature:
(32x32 default icon) or (48x48 custom icon)

Remember that bitmaps increase the size of the final package (even if they will be compressed by Paquet Builder).

Standard Interface

Standard packages have the following additional settings:

Banner bitmap: this bitmap is displayed on the main dialog box. You can change this picture by specifying a new bitmap file into the field. If this field is left blank, Paquet Builder will use the default picture.
You can also click on the Browse button to select one of the shipped bitmap files (in the Resources sub-folder).

Information about the bitmap file:

Height: 40 pixels.
Width: 40 pixels.
Colors: 8bits per pixel, indexed - is recommended (to reduce the size of the final bitmap file).
Background: gray (system color of Windows buttons and dialog boxes).