Job Name

Use this to quickly identify what the job does.

Description

This is a long text field for job details or instructions.

Graphics Processing

The Graphics Processing checkbox specifies whether the current job should process graphics source files or carry out the standard merging process. You typically set graphics processing jobs to do these:

*

Convert picture files to the common web/wap formats: GIF, JPEG or WBMP. If you have Apple QuickTime installed, your source files may be in any of these formats: Silicon Graphics, Photoshop, BMP, JPEG, PICT, PNG, MacPaint, TIFF, Targa, JP2, QuickTime Image, and FlashPix. The actual set of source formats supported depends on the version of QuickTime you have installed. The exported JPEG files are medium in quality, with a typical size of about 85k for a 1024x768 picture.

*

Reduce color depth, such as changing 32-bit pictures with essentially grayscale colors to 8-bit.

*

Create thumbnails for index pages.

Output Format

You may choose one of three common web/wap formats:

*

GIF: This format allows only a maximum of 256 colors (or 8-bit color depth), and is therefore more suitable for artwork-type graphics.

*

JPEG: This is a common format for digital photos and allows color depths more than 8 bits.

*

WBMP: It is the 1-bit (i.e. black-and-white) Wireless Bitmap format for WAP devices. Due to the low connection speeds of such devices, your source and thus the output files are typically small.

Output Color Depth

You always aim to minimize color depth to reduce graphics file size. Don't overdo it, however, or you may loose important color information and perhaps critical picture details. If your picture essentially consists of shades of gray, reducing its color depth from 32 bits to 8 will make it 75% smaller.

Output Width, Output Height

Don't use these settings to enlarge your pictures as it adds nothing but file size. These fields are included for you to easily create small thumbnails for your index pages, so that users can easily identify the pictures they want before accessing the bigger files for details.

Template Preview

If you include a screenshot of your template, which is the case with all our free web templates, Mergemill will show a thumbnail preview on the job definition input form, so long as the screenshot file has the same name as the template and they are in the same folder. The user must install Apple QuickTime to use this feature. Since the template preview shows only 200 x 216 pixels, you should create thumbnails of your screenshots to fit within these dimensions to avoid Mergemill slowing down reading and writing large graphic files.

Job Folder

Here you keep the full path of the folder that contains all the files and folders specified in the current job and its associated tasks. If you later need to move the whole job, say, to a different workstation, you only need to update this path and all the files and folders under it will be correctly located. Use the Get Path button at the right of this field to select the folder and put its path into the field.

Template

This is the file that contains the non-changing contents as well as all the tags. Use the Get Path button to select the file and put its path into the field.

Source Folder

If you have a set of source content files to be merged with the template, put them all into a folder and specify it as the Source Folder. Again, use the Get Path button to put its path into this field.

As Single Source

If this checkbox is marked, all files in the Source Folder will be considered as a single content source, and all rules that apply to a single external source file is valid to the Source Folder. In this case, when you run a job that uses the folder, Mergemill will read the contents of all files in the folder into memory as if they were from a single file.

Output Folder

This is where the generated files from the current job will be saved to. Again, the easiest way is to use the Get Path button to specify the path.

Output Filename Components

This group of fields define the components with which the name of each output file will be constructed. The component choices are:

*

01: Template Filename -- The filename part of the template. For example, if the template is 'index.htm', this component will be 'index'.

*

02: Source Filename -- The filename part of the source file (in the source folder) used for the output file being generated. For example, if the source file being used to generate the current output file is 'tiger.txt', this component will be 'tiger'.

*

03: Date (YYYYMMDD) -- This component is the current date in yyyymmdd format, such as 20011231.

*

04: Date (DDMMYYYY) -- This component is the current date in ddmmyyyy format, such as 31122001.

*

05: Date (MMDDYYYY) -- This component is the current date in mmddyyyy format, such as 12312001.

*

06: Month (YYYYMM) -- This component is the current month in yyyymm format, such as 200112.

*

07: Sequence No. (1, 2, 3...) -- For this self-generating number you need to provide an instruction in the associated text box. The format is 'bbb; iii', where 'bbb' is the beginning number and 'iii' is the increment. The number of digits used in the component will follow that of 'bbb'. So if you specify '012;2', this component will appear in the output filename as 012, 014, 016, and so on.

*

08: User Text -- This part is any text you want to be inserted into the output filename.

*

09: Template File Extension -- This component is the extension part of the template filename. For example, if the template is 'index.htm', this component will be '.htm'.

*

10: Source File Extension -- This component is the extension part of the name of the source file (in the source folder) being used. For example, if the source file is 'tiger.txt', this component will be '.txt'.

*

11: Field Content -- If this component is chosen, you need to enter a field tag into the associated text box. To assist you in doing that, all the field tags identified in the current template will appear in a choice list for you to select from. This component allows the content providers to specify the output filenames in their source files.

*

12: Page No (1, 2, 3 ...) -- This inserts the system value THIS_PAGE_NUM.

FTP Account

Here you select an FTP account to upload web pages generated by this job to the directory specified by the next field. Available FTP accounts on the pop-up list can be set by selecting the menu item: File > FTP Accounts...

FTP Directory

You specify in this field the directory path for the FTP upload. Please note that you must use the Unix path separator "/" here.