title: Custom maven assembly
body: <p>I'm starting to work with Maven but am not yet successfully thinking in Maven's terms. I have a specific requirement and the docs aren't giving me enough clues, so I could use a bit of help:</p>
  
  <p>I'd like to create an assembly that</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>builds a <code>jar-with-dependencies</code> like the "standard" target of this name, but excluding a couple of the resources. I want <code>log4j.properties</code> and a couple of other configuration files to <em>not</em> be in the jar.</p></li>
  <li><p>builds a <code>.ZIP</code> file containing in its root directory the <code>.jar</code> from step 1 as well as the above mentioned config files.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I want to fire this assembly up from the command line (only), hence no need to tie to a phase (or goal? mojo?). Preferrably using either <code>assembly:assembly</code> or <code>assembly:single</code>.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Do I need a custom assembly descriptor for this? </li>
  <li>And is it true I can't nest it in the <code>pom.xml</code>? So it goes in <code>src/assembly/something.xml</code> and gets referenced with a <code>descriptorRef</code>?</li>
  <li>Can I code this as two relatively simple assemblies, of which one builds on the other (i.e. the .Zip assembly uses the .Jar assembly) or do I have to do everything in one assembly?</li>
  </ul>