Project Options Tab

Select Tools>Options (MPLAB X IDE>Preferences for macOS) and then click the Embedded button, Project Options tab, to see the options listed below.

Table 1. Project Options Tab Items
Item Description
Make Options Enter make options to use when building projects.

These options are toolchain dependent. See your language tool documentation.

File Path Mode Specifies how to store file path information in a project:

Auto: paths to files inside project folder stored as relative; paths to files outside project folder stored as absolute.

Always Relative: all paths stored as relative to project folder.

Always Absolute: all paths stored as absolute (full path).

Save All Modified Files Before Running Make If selected, saves all unsaved files in the IDE before running make. It is recommended to leave this property selected because modifications to files in the IDE are not recognized by make unless they are first saved to disk.
Reuse Output Tabs from Finished Process When selected, output messages are displayed in the same tab in the Output window. When deselected, a new tab is opened for each new process.
Use parallel make


(make -j 2n)

If selected, make will execute several processes at a time, where -j (or --jobs) is the option to run in parallel and 2n is the number of processes, where n is the number of processors available on your computer. If your computer does not support parallel processing, parallel make will be disabled.

If you wish, you can specify more processes by using “Make Options.” Example: -j 10.

Note: For MPLAB XC16 or MPLAB C30, Procedural Abstraction needs to be turned off to use parallel make (File>Project Properties, compiler category, “Optimizations” option category: uncheck “Unlimited procedural abstraction”).
Note: MPASMX cannot run under parallel make, either as a toolchain or part of an MPLAB C18 project. The parallel make option is therefore ignored in projects using MPASMX toolchain or in projects using the C18 toolchain that contain at least one .asm file.
Force makefile regeneration when opening a project Uncheck to allow MPLAB X IDE to determine whether or not a makefile should be regenerated when a project has opened (e.g., opening a project on a different computer). This is the default.

Check to force regeneration of the makefile on project open. Use this if you suspect the makefile is not being regenerated when it needs to be.

Note: Regeneration can take some time.
Use “clean” target from Makefile Uncheck to use the standard clean, i.e., delete all build artifacts. This is faster.

Check to use make clean, i.e., use the make file when performing clean. This gives more control to what is cleaned.