How to apply modern flat UI in wix toolset?

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I need to get a Modern UI using Wix or WixEdit. Is it possible? If yes, how?

Also, I want to activate the installer using my server(Activation Key). How can this be made possible in Wix Toolset or using WixEdit?

What I have tried:

I have tried may 3rd party tools like Installforge & Inno Setup. But I came across Wix as a fully customizable installer creator. So I turned up to Wix.

Posted 9-Jul-20 22:29pm

D J Code

Updated 15-Jul-20 3:31am

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Richard MacCutchan 10-Jul-20 5:04am

Check the documentation.

MadMyche 10-Jul-20 5:38am

Your best bet would be to read the documentation and find some tutorials. Google may be of assistance.

D J Code 11-Jul-20 11:29am

@MadMyche: I have already searched the web, google and also in the forums. I have also tried to find documentation related to customizing UI in Wix. But I could not find anything useful. Can you please comment me some link of Wix documentation related to my question?

frostcox 12-Jul-20 16:22pm

HI, we used wix for a couple of years, we ended up moving away from it due to how difficult it was to customise. We then just purchased a perpetual licence for Install Shield for 50 bucks and it is 100 times easier to use and saved us countless hours.

johannesnestler 13-Jul-20 10:55am

Hi DJ Code - I also use wix to make installers, I changed the Mondo_UI a Little (not quite what you have in mind though). Have a look at the wix tutorial how to customize your UI (not so easy...) but it was a great help to just look at (and copy Code) from the Mondo_UI Code (see https://github.com/wixtoolset/wix3). Don't listen to others suggesting "cheap" alternatvie like InstallShield (it's just a better copy tool, doesn't realy solve real "Installation" Problems, doesn't work great with sourcecontrol, ... - but i agree that for most people this is "enough" until problems occure..). I think wix is a great tech ;) - but to if i really Need an "designed" installer UI I would proably make a custom application to "Control" normal msi-packages (which you can create with wix) - just an idea…

Kind regards Johannes

D J Code 14-Jul-20 9:42am

@johannesnestler: Thanks for your reply. I am quite a novice to using the Wix toolset. Can you please guide me about customizing the Wix installer to suite my needs? Note the need of Activation through Server(I need to connect to my server and verify the entered Activation Key). I tried using InstallForge which has a built-in Serial-Key Feature but the funniest part is that the key never expired!! I could literally use the key over and over again.

johannesnestler 14-Jul-20 10:05am

Hi again, It would be quite difficult to guide you through the whole process. If you are a novice to wix you should look at the simple tutorials, wix is not really hard if you "get" the basic idea. But keep in mind that creating good setups for customers is never "easy", but if you do it "once" right you will have professional deployment for your applications (if you got it make a VisualStudio Template Project out of it, so you can reuse it for other applications and never look back).

For the Licence check I would create a custom action (you can write that in many languages, also .NET) to handle the license check (that way you can do it exactly as you want, and you can reuse in other Setups)

For the UI-Part: This is really difficult to get right and the whole process is kind of clumsy, I think it's good enough for adding a few pages, custom configs and so on, but to really redesign one of the default UI's is a lot of work, therefore I would consider other solutions (as I mentioned - Maybe something like this idea https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5773/Wrapping-the-Windows-Installer-2-0-API)

If you have specific problems feel free to ask, I have some experience with most wix parts (but there is a lot into it, have a look at the very useful extensions!)

Kind regards Johannes

D J Code 15-Jul-20 6:39am

@johannestler: Thanks for the reply. As I posted in the question, I have already surfed through the web looking for examples related to this. Maybe I can add another dialog by looking at the script but I have no idea on how to write a custom action using c#. Actually I am already into c# programming but never done Wix seriously.

Actually, the flat UI doesn't matter much. My purpose to ask that was to atleast get an example to add dialogs and do custom tasks.

As you may be knowing, the Wix Documentation is quite lengthy and coursing through the more than 40 articles on the website may cost me a great deal of time. Can you guide me a bit or point out specifically to some article which will help me add a custom dialog and write a custom action of connecting to my server?

Feel free to give me a short example as it won't be difficult to make a coding geek understand!

Best regards,
DJ

johannesnestler 15-Jul-20 9:31am

see my "solution"

D J Code 15-Jul-20 10:28am

@johannestler: Thanks for the solution! You have posted great examples & I hope to see my setup working fine now. I am still working on my installer and I have got quite an idea about the working of Wix. And yes, you don't sound like and advertiser at all! Wix has great functionality and even I agree to it. Hope to see Wix releasing some good tutorials in the future. If I encounter any problem ahead(hope there are none) I will reply your comment. Thanks for your help!

D J Code 16-Jul-20 10:16am

Thank you! I am sure of the success of the project.

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johannesnestler · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-15T03:31:00

This is an answer to your last comment - because it's kind of a "solution".

@Wix: Tutorial: I think it's quite "good" because you have small "snippets" with examples for concret requirements - it's not required to read it as a "whole".

@CustomActions: See the tutorial at Extra Actions[^] as a reference.
Start to add a "C# Custom Action Project for Wix v3" from VisualStudio (wix installed all the project templates for you)
this should be easy - it pre-generates code for one action - just fill in your code for licence check and you are good.
You can also use the Setup-Variables (have to be uppercase to be "global" in wix) to communicate "back" to the setup with the "session" object.(example taken from one of my action which can read and edit the app.config Files)

session.Log(strFilePath);
  if (File.Exists(strFilePath))
  {
      session["CONFIGURATION_FOUND"] = "1";

      ExeConfigurationFileMap map = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
      map.ExeConfigFilename = strFilePath;
      if (map == null)
      {
          session.Log("map null");
          session["CONFIGURATION_INVALID"] = "1";
          return ActionResult.Success; // don't break the custom action here
      }

The "difficult" part is to find the right "place" in the setup sequence, i think a good place for your licence check could be after "FindRelatedProducts" at the beginning of the setup... (but that depends when you want to make it)

<InstallUISequence>
      <Custom Action='MyLicenceCheckAction' After='FindRelatedProducts'>LICENSEOK</Custom>

@Custom UI: You can get an idea about the basic workings of the Installer UI here A Single Dialog[^] - as I mentioned before (in the comments) have a look at the code under wix3/src/ext/UIExtension/wixlib at develop · wixtoolset/wix3 · GitHub[^] to change (as example) the Mondo_UI. You will "Publish" your dialogs then always with the same (clumsy, error-prone process) - Find the place where your dialog should appear in the sequence (this can depend on conditions), change the "Publishing" of the dialogs before and after the new one to correctly navigate "back" and "next".

Example from my codebase: (I have a custom configuration Dialog "injected" after you select "Custom Installation"

The publishing of my dialog is like this:

XML

<Publish Dialog="DialogUpdatingConfiguration" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">WixUI_InstallMode = "InstallCustom"</Publish>
      <Publish Dialog="DialogUpdatingConfiguration" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="DialogSetupOptions">1</Publish>

The Publishing of the dialog before that changed to:

XML

<Publish Dialog="DialogSetupOptions" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="DialogUpdatingConfiguration" Order="2">EDIT_CONFIGURATION = 1</Publish>

and the publishing of the dialog after my custom one (the Default VerifyReadyDlg) changed to

XML

<Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="DialogSetupOptions" Order="5">WixUI_InstallMode = "InstallCustom"</Publish>
      <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="DialogUpdatingConfiguration" Order="6">EDIT_CONFIGURATION = 1</Publish>

You see that in case EDIT_CONFIGURATION == 1 I know that I came from my "DialogUpdatingConfiguration" so "Back" means go back to that dialog, in ohter cases I will go back to other Dialogs, for each condition/Navigation you have to add a "Publish" entry…

XML

<Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="SetupTypeDlg" Order="2">WixUI_InstallMode = "InstallTypical" OR WixUI_InstallMode = "InstallComplete"</Publish>
      <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="CustomizeDlg" Order="3">WixUI_InstallMode = "Change"</Publish>
      <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Order="4">WixUI_InstallMode = "Repair" OR WixUI_InstallMode = "Remove"</Publish>
      <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="WelcomeDlg" Order="2">WixUI_InstallMode = "Update"</Publish>

If you reached this point, I think from here everything is just more of the same. Feel free to ask further questions, I will try to help ;)
Just play arround a little with wix - I hope you will come to the same conclusion as I did: Wix is great and it solved all my setup "problems" in one way or the other. I never found a "show-stopper" that didn't let me realize what I wanted (Firewalls, COM-Server registration, Lic-Checks, Custom-Config, Localization of setups, dependency checks, and a myriad other things where the robocopy-based setup "solutions" find their limits ;) - sorry for sounding like an advertiser (I'm not associated or work on wix in any form) - I think in my current codebase I have arround 50 wix based setups :D (not so small software-suite)

Kind regards Johannes

How to apply modern flat UI in wix toolset?

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