9 replies to this topic

[ezk]

How can one remove the license agreement from the 'Install welcome' sequence of dialogs in the 'Installation\User Interface\Install Welcome' subsequence (or any other such dialog, for that matter) without creating a new Wizard project? Anybody know? Thanks.

[Art McKendry]

Open Dialog Editor
Select the InstallWelcome Dialog / Behavior
Click on the "Next" Control PB Name
You should see a "NewDialog" under the Events
Change "LicenseAgreement" to "CustomerInformation"  (Click on it and, Wait - It takes some time for the drop down list to fill up and activate)

You will need to do the same thing to the Customerinformation dialog so that the "Back" button goes to InstallWelcome instead of LicenseAgreement.

Regards.

[ezk]

That does work- thanks. You'd think the Install Shield guys would have made it a bit simpler, but it's easy enough once you know the UNDOCUMENTED trick. Then again, maybe I should blame Microsoft (& also for creating this whole MSI mess in the first place)!

[SteveP]

The same task can be accomplished using ORCA for those who are not using IS.  Edit the ControlEvent Table for the Dialog and Control you want to change.  In this instance, change the Argument to the Next control on the WelcomeDlg to the dialog you want to use.  Then change the Argument to the Back control on the selected dialog to WelcomeDlg.

For our developer's install, we go directly from the WelcomeDlg to the CustomizeDlg to save a bit of time.  You will need to remember that the maintenance mode has a different set of dialogs which can also be manipulated.  If the change you are making impacts a dialog in the SetupType sequence, you will probably have to change both the standard and maintenance sets of dialogs.

Finally, if you are adding a dialog using ORCA, you will need to remember to modify the Next control on the preceeding dialog and the Back contron on the following dialog to ensure that  your custom dialog appears in the correct sequence.

[ezk]

SteveP- In other words, blame Microsoft...

[SteveP]

ezk - Interesting perspective ... No, I don't blame Microsoft.  

The custom packager that we use automatically realigns entry and exit points for the preceeding and following dialogs when we insert or remove something in the UI.  The MSI schema makes this possible.  The packager also displays all effected tables in tandem when editing controls.  

If your packager does not do these things, then perhaps you are using the wrong tool.  If you need features you have not got, then maybe it would be appropriate to do a cost/benefits analysis and think about designing your own interface.

[ezk]

SteveP-
I don't have the time to design my own interface- writing installation programs is just a piece of what I do. Writing the programs which are going to get installed is the other piece.
When this whole MSI thing came along, it really threw a monkey wrench in my gears! Yes, it's probably a better way to do things- I admit that. But the 'cost' to me has been a major learning curve and a good deal of time to determine that anything that wasn't totally compliant with the new way of doing things would just be a kludge which would come back to haunt me someday.
At our small company (~60 programmers) we've been using Install Shield 5.5 forever- all of the sudden, our entire installation system is under fire. I now have to restructure a large, complex automated system which creates our installations to be MSI compliant- not my idea of a good time.

[SteveP]

EK-

I can readily sympathize with your problem.  The necessity of using WI to comply with Win2000 logo requirements adds even more spice to the game.  

We are 'fortunate' enough to be in the part of our development cycle where we have the luxury of transitioning to new technology without upsetting too many apple carts.  The rest was simply a management decision that the install is important enough to assign a team to devising a build procedure that complies with the requirments of our topology without having to be 're-cobbled' every time we want to change a component.  WISE and IS don't meet our needs, so we simply had to find another way.

[SkipSailors]

Pardon a lurker.

Dialog sequences are usually, IME, best described as a state transition diagram. with states held in dialogs and transitions indicated by button presses, more or less.

I haven't seen many good tools for that kind of development.  Rational Rose, maybe.  My old IBM Symbol 3 Flow chart tool was pretty good.

Microsoft presents us in the MSI a good compact storage scheme for the STD.  It's a lot like the Directed Graph scheme I remember from Aho, Ullman, Hopcraft.  I don't see where Microsoft ever made a claim that this information is suitable for direct human consumption.  I always thought Microsoft was targeting this to tool-makers.  Let the tool-makers worry about a reasonable human mapping to the underlying storage.

I think modeling STDs to represent solutions continues to be one of the trickier things we garps practice.  I am willing to hang with the front-enders a bit while they struggle with finding me a good tool to construct directed graphs.

In the meantime, I have to always be ready to review my linked-list insertion and deletion algorithms.