Creating a New Package

Follow these steps to configure and build a new package containing files you specify.

  1. Select Add File or Add Directory to add an input using the Inputs pane.
    When a file or directory is added, Package Builder automatically performs discovery. After a file or directory has been added, Package Builder performs discovery, which adds the contents of a directory or the dependencies of a file as subitems. Discovery is also performed each time you build the solution. You can also perform discovery at any time by clicking the Discover All Items button in the toolbar.
    1. Select Add File to add either a loose file or a file that has dependencies, such as a TestStand sequence file.
    2. Select Add Folder to add many files located in a directory structure, some of which will be deployed. This will also find dependencies within the directory structure.
    3. Select Add Folder Without Discovery if you do not need control of which files in a directory structure are deployed — this deploys all files in the directory.
    If, after inputs are added to the Input pane, the dependencies change, then perform discovery again by selecting Discover All Items.
  2. Select New Package in the Editor pane to create the first package or select New Package in the Packages pane for subsequent packages.
  3. Drag files and/or directories from the Input pane to the Editor pane. This adds the items to the package.
    Note Packages only support certain target root directories such as [Home] and [Documents]. If the other target root directories do not support your use case, then use [Boot Volume] and add subdirectories to create the desired installation directory. Refer to Target Root Directories for more details.
    Note The drag-over tool tip provides information on how many files are being dragged and how many will be dropped.
  4. Create the desired file structure for the target machine in the Editor. Add new directories by right-clicking on the parent directory and selecting Insert Directory. You can drag files to different directories as necessary. You should delete files in the Editor only if they are not necessary and it will not affect the files' presence in the Input pane.
    Tip Split files across multiple packages if some files remain unchanged while other files are updated frequently. For example, relatively static files can be built into one package and frequently changing files into another package. Move files from one package to another using cut-and-paste or drag-and-drop, and then rebuilding the affected packages.
  5. Specify any package dependencies, if needed.
    1. Select Add Dependency.
    2. Select Solution Packages or Installed Packages and select the checkbox for each package you wish to add as a dependency.
      Note You can only add packages which have already been installed to your PC.
  6. Configure package properties by selecting the package in the Packages pane and then selecting the property to be changed in the Properties pane.
    Note The Output directory defaults to a subdirectory, Packages, of the solution file location.
    Tip NI recommends that you leave the Version field to increment option set to either Build or Patch. Either of these settings increments the version number each time you successfully build the package. If you disable this option, always use a version number for the current package build that is higher than the version number for previous package installations. If a user tries to install a new package on a computer that has a previous installation of the package, the version numbers and constraints determine the package installation behavior.
    Caution After your package has been installed by your users, NI recommends carefully considering whether to change the package name, as creating a different package name would not automatically replace the original package and could create side-by-side installations.
  7. If this is a new solution, select File » Save to save the Package Builder solution. You must save the solution before building, because package outputs are placed in subdirectories relative to the solution, by default.
  8. Select Build Packages to build the package(s). Use the Errors and Warnings pane to address errors as needed.