Create window
When you start MultiPar without selecting a recovery file, this window opens. On the window, you select source files and specify how to create new recovery files.

### Source files

Base directory and Browse button
  This directory is the folder where source files exist. You may change this by clicking "Browse" button, Drag & Drop a folder, or double-click the path box. When you select a new folder, all files in the folder will be selected.

Add Files, Remove Files, or Reset List buttons
  You may add or remove source files by clicking those buttons. By right-clicking the file-list, popup menu will appear. To add files, "Drag & Drop" or "Copy & Paste" works, too. Every files must exist under the base directory. Though you can select files only in the parent folder for PAR 1.0, you can select files in the parent folder and sub-folders for PAR 2.0.

Selected files are listed on the file-list, and the total data size and blocks are calculated. PAR 1.0 supports upto 256 files, and PAR 2.0 supports upto 32768 files. It is recomended to use archiver (ZIP, RAR, TAR or something) for many files. In PAR 2.0, parent folders are treated as sub-directory in filenames. Only empty folders (without files in them) are shown as folder in the file-list.

Split Files and Limit Size to
  In PAR 2.0, you can split source files by checking this option. The split size will be a multiple of block size, which is the highest size under than this limit. Splited files are saved in the recovery files' path. Including folder disables this feature.

Append Recovery record
  In PAR 2.0, you can append recovery record to an archive file (ZIP or 7z format). This feature will join created PAR2 files at the end of a single source file. This is impossible for 2GB over archive or failed at multiple times. While recovery record is attached, general archivers can treat the archive ordinary. When you open the archive with recovery record by MultiPar, complete archive file is shown as "Appended". Caution, if you repair it, attached recovery record will be removed.

### Block allocation

For PAR 1.0, number of source blocks is same as number of source files (except empty file). If their size are different each other, it will become inefficient. When you treat such files of varied size, you should pack them into an archive, and split it into pieces of same size, then create PAR1 files for the pieces.

For PAR 2.0, many blocks are aligned in each source file. After source files are selected, ideal blocks are allocated automatically by your selected allocating method. You may change block size or number of blocks manually. As you set more blocks, the speed will be slow down. As you set fewer blocks, it will be inefficient to recover small damage. For practical use, number of blocks would better be thousand or several thousands. When you input block size directly, you may type the size with unit like "KB" or "MB". For compatibility, it's good to set less than 100,000,000 bytes (95 MB).

### Recovery files

Base Filename
  "Base Filename" is a base of naming recovery files. Though this will be set automatically, you may change it to favorite name. After the base, volume number and extension are appended.

Path and Browse button
  This is path of the directory where recovery files will be saved. When you change "Base directory", this is set to the location. You may change this by clicking "Browse" button, Drag & Drop a folder, or double-click the path box.

Comment button
  If you want to write personal note, you may enter comment. But, other PAR clients ignore this comment.

Redundancy
  "Redundancy" is a rate of how much damage can be recovered. For example, if you set 10% for source files of 500MB, you will be able to recover damage or lost upto 50MB. Caution, actual possibility of recovery depends on the distribution of damage. In general, while dense damage in narrow area may be recovered with small redundancy, sparse damage over wide area requires larger redundancy. When you set 0%, only an index file to verify will be created.

Number of Recovery blocks
  You may input the number of recovery blocks directly. You can set more blocks than the range of redundancy slider.

Fit to free space button and Media size
  When you want to fill CD or DVD with both source files and recovery files, this feature is useful. You may select the media or input the writable size directly. It is safe to set a bit smaller redundancy, because the calculation considers total data size only.

Sizing scheme and Number of recovery files
  "Sizing scheme" is how are the size of recovery files. When "All the same size" or "Variable size" is selected, you can set the number of recovery files. Then, the specified number of recovery files of same size or different size will be created. When "Powers of 2 sizing scheme" or "Decimal weights sizing scheme" is selected, the number of recovery blocks in each recovery file will be "1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128..." or "1, 1, 2, 5, 10, 10, 20, 50...". Each recovery file will be smaller than the largest source file (or splited source files).

Sample distribution of 500 blocks for each sizing scheme:

Sizing scheme | How many blocks in each recovery file
--- | ---
All the same size | 167, 167, 166 (when 3 files) | 84, 84, 83, 83, 83, 83 (when 6 files)
Variable size | 72, 144, 284 (when 3 files) | 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 252 (when 6 files)
Powers of 2 sizing scheme | 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 245 (total 9 files)
Decimal weights sizing scheme | 1, 1, 2, 5, 10, 10, 20, 50, 100, 100, 200, 1 (total 12 files)

Efficiency
  This is a rate of how much data the recovery files can recover. For example, when the efficiency is 95% for recovery files of 200MB, you will be able to recover upto 190MB.

Number of files that can be fully reconstructed if missing (Min - Max)
  You may refer these values to know the recoverying capability of recovery files. When sizes of source files are largely different, recovering a file may require more redundancy than you thought.

Open button
  If you want to open an existing recovery file, push this to select which. The current setting over Create window is not saved.

Exit button
  You can close MultiPar by pushing this. Be careful, because there is no warning before exit. The current setting over Create window is not saved.

Options button
  If you want to change settings, push this, then Option window will appear.

About button
  By pushing this, you can see version number on About window. You may launch this Help from there.

Preview button
  If you want to know the size of each recovery file, you can see Preview window by pushing this.

Create button
  After you selected source files and done every setting, you push this to create recovery files. Creating window will open to show the progress. When multiple instances of MultiPar are running, it waits finish of another instance's task, and will start next.

Help for MultiPar

Create window
Preview window
Creating window
Verify window
Recreate window
Option window