Display Billboards

This page allows you specify bitmaps (called billboards) to be displayed during the file unpacking process. You can use billboards to notify the user of new features, other company products, or even encourage them to register.

Please note that billboards are displayed even if the progress monitor is disabled.

Managing billboards

To add a billboard to the list, press the Add button and then select the file to add.

To remove a billboard from the list, select it and press the Remove button.

Billboards are displayed in the order in which they appear in the list. You can reorder the billboards using mouse drag/drop operations.

Method of display

Billboards are automatically displayed based on the total size of the files selected and the amount of billboards included. For example, if there are 4 billboards, they will be displayed when 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75% of the selected files have been unpacked.

Billboards Tips

• Paquet Builder only supports billboards in the standard Windows bitmap format. Any color scheme is allowed but bitmaps with "8bits per pixel, indexed" is recommended. In fact billboards increase the package's final size even if Paquet Builder compresses them.
• There is no size restriction but your bitmaps should remain enough small (500x400 for example).
• At this time Paquet Builder does not provide options for selecting where on the screen billboards should be displayed. They are automatically centered on the users' desktop. If the progress monitor is activated, the latter will be moved to the bottom of the screen.
  Further options will be available in future versions of Paquet Builder (such as billboards placement) if there is enough user requests.
• Your bitmaps do not need to have the same size (but it will appear less attractive).
• Billboard files must remain available until you build your package: they won't be saved into the project file.

IMPORTANT: the package automatically decompresses all bitmaps (and other internal data) into memory when it is started by the end user (before displaying the first dialog box). If your bitmaps are too large (more than 500kb for instance), the package will require more time to start.

Solution: be sure to always use small 8-bit indexed bitmaps that are not too big. A single bitmap file whose size is more than 400kb is already considered as "large".