Projects View

The Projects view is located by default on the left of the main program window. It is designed to display a set of currently opened MSI Package Builder projects and the nodes representing the changes to be performed by the deployment package Pic 1. On the project node, you can also see the current version of the deployment package to generate, and on each changes node, you can see how many entries are available in the corresponding set of changes.

The Projects view

Pic 1. The Projects view

The icon next to every item represented in the Projects view is used to describe the item type and state. The state icons are provided to help you understand what is currently happening in the program. You can always see if the item is being processed now by some operation or not, and if there are any processing problems. Below is the list of icons used:

	-	an MSI Package Builder project;
	-	an MSI Package Builder project is being operated;
	-	an MSI Package Builder project containing errors that should be resolved before creating a deployment package;
	-	an MSI Package Builder project based on monitoring results that is not prepared;
	-	an MSI Package Builder project based on monitoring results that is prepared;
	-	an MSI Package Builder project based on monitoring results that could not be fully prepared (not all of required files were available during the prepare operation).

The Projects view is the starting point for managing changes and creating a deployment package based on existing projects. It is also a master view for the main program area: the views displayed there depend on the selection in the Projects view.

Functions Overview

Projects Management	From the Projects view, you can create, rename, delete, open and close MSI Package Builder projects. To perform these actions, you can either use the pop-up menu of the Projects view or the buttons from the Project Management group on the Home Ribbon page. The actions for creating a new project, opening existing projects and closing all projects are available in the pop-up menu displayed on an empty selection, and to edit, rename, delete and close specific projects, you should first select those projects. Detailed information about the projects management abilities is available in the Projects Management section of this document.
Projects Preparation	Within the Projects view, it is possible to prepare the projects created on a basis of the monitoring results. The preparation steps consist of copying the file system resources to the projects storage, repairing missing links and rolling system folders. These actions are available in the pop-up menu and on the Project Ribbon page. To learn more about preparing the projects, refer to the Projects Preparation section of this document.
Capturing Changes	From the Projects view, it is possible to capture changes to the underlying operating system and create a project, containing the performed changes. To start a new session of changes capturing use either the Start Monitoring item from the pop-up menu displayed on an empty selection, or the Start Monitoring button from the Capture group on the Home Ribbon page. To stop the changes capturing session, use the Stop Monitoring items. The capturing abilities can be used for low-level repackaging and for simple monitoring of the application activity.
Deployment Package Generation	You can easily create a deployment package containing the changes represented by any project displayed in the Projects view. Just select that project and choose the Create MSI Package, the Create App-V Package or the Create MSIX/AppX Package item in the pop-up menu – it is equivalent to using the corresponding buttons from the Builder group on the Home Ribbon page. Detailed information about the deployment package generation abilities is available in the Creating an MSI Package, Creating an App-V Package and Creating an MSIX/AppX Package sections of this document.
Deployment Package Import	It is possible to create a project by extracting any deployment package generated with MSI Package Builder in the Projects view. This feature is called a deployment package import. To perform import, use either the Import Package item from the pop-up menu displayed on an empty selection, or the Import Package button from the Project Management group on the Home Ribbon page.
Search	Within the Projects view, you can execute a search for specific project using the Find item from the pop-up menu.

From the Projects view pop-up menu, depending on the selection, it is possible to perform projects management, capture changes, import existing deployment packages, etc.