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Armed with only the Wix docs, I'm struggling immensely to put together a basic UI for my installer, to the point where I'm evidently failing to grasp some foundational ideas here.

Reading https://wixtoolset.org/docs/tools/wixext/wixui/ , it seems like I'm expected to start with a template - wixui minimal is closest to what I want. I want to add a custom dialog and skip the licence dialog, so rather than using the template directly it looks like I'm expected to download and edit the template source.

I tried doing this, incorporating the downloaded source with adjustments into my .wxs, but now I'm missing all the standard icons and fonts etc that would be available if I was just referencing the template directly. If I reference the template directly, I'm then stuck with the unwanted parts of the install sequence that I can't seem to remove or override. What's the trick that I'm missing here?

This is a frustratingly vague question but there just don't seem to be any good resources available.

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  • You might think about using a WiX Burn UI instead (related search term is "Bundle"). I found it fairly easy to modify as you just need to modify a single XML file, that contains all dialogs. It also provides a more modern UI. Commented Dec 10, 2024 at 10:10

3 Answers 3

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I got where I ended to go, in the end, mostly through a lot of trial and error - my understanding is still pretty shallow. I found scrapping the UI templates and starting from scratch to be the least confounding option, as I never really figured out how to 'remove' a dialog added by the templates, but this probably wouldn't be true if I knew what I was doing.

As the other answers suggest, there are possibly more conventional and powerful UI options available these days, but a basic approach suits my needs here.

This minimal project does work and demonstrates an untemplated UI making use of both custom and standard dialogs, with images. I've tried to take out anything redundant. Uninstall flow works but is completely standard. Requires the WixToolset.UI.wixext extension, either specified in a .wixproj for a dotnet built or supplied as an -ext argument to a direct wix build (ext needs to be manually installed first?)

Product.wxs:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs"
     xmlns:ui="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs/ui">
    <Package Name="MyApp" 
            Version="1.0.0.0" 
            Manufacturer="My Company"
            UpgradeCode="12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012">

        <!-- UI Resources -->
        <!-- Primarily seems to serve to make the image references in builtin dialogs work -->
        <UIRef Id="WixUI_Common" />

        <!-- Font Definitions -->
        <!-- I'm sure there's some redundancy between these and the TextStyles in the UI, 
        but I'm not going to chase this down immediately. -->
        <Property Id="DefaultUIFont" Value="WixUI_Font_Normal" />
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIFont" Value="Tahoma" Overridable="yes" />
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIFontBig" Value="Tahoma" Overridable="yes" />
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIFontTitle" Value="Tahoma" Overridable="yes" />
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIFontSize" Value="8" Overridable="yes" />

        <!-- Image Resources -->
        <!-- I don't think these actually have to be bmps but too late now -->
        <Binary Id="WixUIBanner" SourceFile="banner.bmp" />

        <!-- Image Properties -->
        <!-- The property points at a binary resource for our custom dialog -->
        <Property Id="BannerBitmap" Value="WixUIBanner" />
        <!-- The WixVariables work for builtin dialogs provided we're referencing common ui-->
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIBannerBmp" Value="banner.bmp" />
        <WixVariable Id="WixUIDialogBmp" Value="dialog.bmp" />

        <!-- Progress Dialog Properties -->
        <Property Id="ActionText" Value="Installing MyApp" />
        <Property Id="PROGRESSTEXT" Value="Installation Progress..." />
        <Property Id="StatusLabel" Value="Please wait..." />

        <!-- Application Properties -->
        <!-- These disable repair/modify in Add/Remove Programs -->
        <Property Id="ARPNOREPAIR" Value="1" />
        <Property Id="ARPNOMODIFY" Value="1" />

        <!-- Exit Dialog Properties -->
        <Property Id="WIXUI_EXITDIALOGOPTIONALCHECKBOX" Value="0"/>
        <Property Id="WIXUI_EXITDIALOGOPTIONALTEXT" Value="Goodbye world!"/>

        <!-- Custom Dialog Properties -->
        <Property Id="CUSTOMTEXT1" Secure="yes" />
        <Property Id="CUSTOMTEXT2" Secure="yes" />

        <!-- Installation Directory -->
        <StandardDirectory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
            <Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="MyApp" />
        </StandardDirectory>

        <!-- Components and Features -->
        <Component Id="MainComponent" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
            <File Source="myexe.exe" />
        </Component>

        <Feature Id="MainFeature" Title="Main Feature">
            <ComponentRef Id="MainComponent" />
        </Feature>

        <!-- UI Definition -->
        <UI>
            <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Normal" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="8" />
            <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Bigger" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="12" />
            <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Title" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="9" Bold="yes" />

            <!-- Standard Dialog References -->
            <DialogRef Id="CancelDlg" />
            <DialogRef Id="ErrorDlg" />
            <DialogRef Id="FatalError" />
            <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" />
            <DialogRef Id="UserExit" />
            <DialogRef Id="ProgressDlg" />
            <DialogRef Id="ExitDialog"/>

            <!-- Validation Error Dialog -->
            <Dialog Id="ValidationError" Width="260" Height="85" Title="Validation Error">
                <Control Id="Return" Type="PushButton" X="100" Y="57" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Cancel="yes" Text="OK">
                    <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return" />
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Text" Type="Text" X="48" Y="15" Width="194" Height="30" Text="Please fill in all required fields before continuing." />
            </Dialog>

            <!-- Custom Dialog -->
            <Dialog Id="CustomDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="Custom Dialog">
                <Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="15" Y="6" Width="200" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes">
                    <Text Value="{\WixUI_Font_Title}Custom Dialog Title" />
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Description" Type="Text" X="25" Y="23" Width="280" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes">
                    <Text Value="Custom dialog description" />
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Text1Label" Type="Text" X="25" Y="70" Width="100" Height="15" Text="Field 1:" />
                <Control Id="Text1" Type="Edit" X="25" Y="85" Width="320" Height="18" Property="CUSTOMTEXT1" />
                <Control Id="Text2Label" Type="Text" X="25" Y="110" Width="100" Height="15" Text="Field 2:" />
                <Control Id="Text2" Type="Edit" X="25" Y="125" Width="320" Height="18" Property="CUSTOMTEXT2" />
                <Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="Next">
                    <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="ValidationError" Condition="NOT CUSTOMTEXT1 OR NOT CUSTOMTEXT2" />
                    <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return" Condition="CUSTOMTEXT1 AND CUSTOMTEXT2" />
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Cancel" Type="PushButton" X="304" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Cancel="yes" Text="Cancel">
                    <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="CancelDlg" />
                </Control>
                <Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="[BannerBitmap]" />
                <Control Id="BannerLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="44" Width="370" Height="0" />
                <Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" />
            </Dialog>

            <!-- Dialog Sequences -->
            <!-- Other referenced dialogs insert themselves?  Not sure they can be overriden. -->
            <InstallUISequence>
                <Show Dialog="CustomDlg" Before="ExecuteAction" Condition="NOT REMOVE" />
            </InstallUISequence>

            <!-- Exit Dialog Handling -->
            <!-- (Without this, the exit dialog cannot be closed) -->
            <Publish Dialog="ExitDialog" Control="Finish" Event="EndDialog" Value="Return" />
        </UI>

    </Package>
</Wix>
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You don't need to copy the entire existing source for a UI library. If you do that, then you'll need to bring in a lot of additional files (to get the fonts, images, etc).

Instead, the documentation suggests copying a dialog as a starting point to modify. Replacing a dialog is the most complex scenario because you must be sure to unwire the existing dialog out of the sequence before wiring in your replacement.

The process does require precision because some dialogs are referenced by many other dialogs in a UI sequence and you need to update them all.

But others before you have been successful, brave adventurer. I believe you too can be successful. :)

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I know of a way to do this much easier but it takes a redesign of the WiXUI and a simple Type 1 C++ CA that queries a table, evaluates the conditions and sets a property. This is how the old Wise Installers for MSI did it and it was very easy and scalable. I'd be happy to write up a WIP but I know you and Bob aren't that interested in Native UI.
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My FOSS project IsWiX has an MSI template that does exactly this. You simply uncomment 1 line of XML and that pulls in a fragment that contains the definition of a Custom dialog and includes publish elements to sequence it in the Install UI wizard loop.

You can install IsWiX and look at the IsWiX tutorials or reach out to me via email for a personal demonstration.

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