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Forms

Introduction​

This section allows you to customize the user interface of your installation. You can change the look and feel as well as the behavior of your installation's user interface.

How do I prevent a form, like License Agreement, from being shown?​

To prevent the license agreement form from being shown, follow the steps below.

  1. Browse to the Property Manager section (under Advanced), in the Project Explorer.
  2. Select the ShowLicenseAgreementDlg property and set it to 0.

To enable or disable any other forms, you can use the other Show properties in a similar fashion.

How do I change the license agreement text?​

You can change the license agreement text by following these steps:

  1. Browse to the Forms section (under User Interface), in the Project Explorer.
  2. Select LicenseAgreementDlg from the list of forms.
  3. Select the control, in the form designer, that contains the license agreement text.
  4. In the property grid, select the property called Text (RTF) and click the [...] to the right of it.
  5. You can either paste the text into the box or load an external RTF file to change the license agreement text.
  6. Click OK to apply the change.

How do I hide or show a control in a form based on a given condition?​

Follow the steps below:

  1. Browse to the Forms section (under User Interface), in the Project Explorer.
  2. Select a form.
  3. Go to the Events and Conditions tab.
  4. Go to the Control Conditions tab (at the bottom).
  5. Choose a control you wish to conditionally hide or show from the drop-down list at the top.
  6. Right-click the list and choose New from the menu. A new action 'Show' is created.
  7. Select the new item in the list and change the action and condition accordingly. For example, to hide a control when IAgree = "Yes", change the action to Hide and the condition to 'IAgree = "Yes"'.

How do I show or hide the CD key field on the user registration form?​

To show or hide the CD key field on the user registration form, follow the steps below.

  1. Browse to the Product Information section (under General), in the Project Explorer.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the main property grid and select the Uses CD key property.
  3. Set this property to False.

How do I easily change the wizard images?​

To change the banner and/or watermark images for the Wise Installation Studio installation wizard, follow the steps below.

  1. Browse to the Data Storage section (under Advanced), in the Project Explorer.
  2. Select WiseBMPBannerBitmap (for the header bitmap) or WiseBMPDialogBitmap (for the wizard intro bitmap) and edit the Data property.
  3. Select Import new binary data from a file, specifying the bitmap file to import.
  4. Press OK.

Working with forms​

Right-click the tree view on the left for operations related to forms, some of which are explained below:

  • New Form - Creates a new form. You can choose from a number of form templates to start with.
  • Import - Loads a form from a file. This file must be an XML file exported by Wise Installation Studio. Imported forms may not function correctly in some installations if they have dependencies on global properties or custom text styles.
  • Export - Saves the selected form to an XML file. It can only be imported by Wise Installation Studio.

Select a form in the tree to edit it. The editing view is shown to the right of the tree view. You can also see a form's properties

Editing forms​

The editing view has two tabs: Design and Layout and Events and Conditions. The first tab allows you to change the form's appearance. The second tab allows you to change the form's behavior.

Design and layout​

The form you are editing is shown in the designer view. The designer is similar to the Visual Studio .NET forms designer. At the top of this tab, there is a drop-down list showing all the controls on the form. You can select controls this way or you can just click on the controls in the designer view. Right-click on the form or on a selected control to view operations that can be done with the form or the control. You can also use the Edit menu.

The design view adds two toolbars at the very top of the Wise Installation Studio window. One of them is the toolbox, containing items to be added to the form and other operations to be done to the form. The other is the formatting toolbar containing alignment operations that can be performed when multiple controls are selected.

To add controls to the form, just select a control in the toolbox and then click inside the form to add it. You can drag the mouse inside the form to specify the size of the control before it is created. You can also add controls using the Items menu.

To align multiple controls, select more than one control (Ctrl+Click) and click a button on the formatting toolbar or use the Format menu.

Control types​

  • Billboard - A container control that typically shows an interesting message to the user while the installation is taking place.
  • Bitmap - Displays a bitmap image.
  • CheckBox - Shows a line of text with a box next to it that can be checked or unchecked by the user.
  • ComboBox - Provides a list of items that can be expanded and collapsed by the user.
  • DirectoryCombo - A combo box control that provides a list of directories.
  • DirectoryList - A list box control that provides a list of directories.
  • Edit - A box that contains editable text.
  • GroupBox - Provides a way to visually group related controls. This is not a container control.
  • Icon - Displays an icon.
  • Line - Represents a horizontal line.
  • ListBox - Provides a list of items which can be selected by the user. It cannot be expanded or collapsed.
  • ListView - Represents a standard Windows Explorer-style list view control. Provides more flexibility than a list box.
  • MaskedEdit - A text box that validates the user's input, making sure it follows a specific pattern.
  • PathEdit - A text box that only accepts valid file system paths.
  • ProgressBar - A horizontal bar that shows the progress of an operation.
  • PushButton - Allows the user to perform an operation by clicking on a button.
  • RadioButton - Shows a line of text with a circle next to it. Only one radio button can be selected in a group at any one time.
  • RadioButtonGroup - A container control that handles radio buttons. All radio buttons must be added to a group.
  • ScrollableText - A text box that supports more than one line of text and more advanced formatting.
  • SelectionTree - A tree that shows features.
  • Text - One or more lines of non-editable (static) text.
  • VolumeCostList - A list that shows the disk cost on all system drives.
  • VolumeSelectCombo - A combo box that lists only disk drives.
  • UserControl - A custom control usually defined by a custom action. Most installations do not use custom controls.

Container controls​

Container controls, such as billboard and radio button groups, allow controls to be placed inside them. These container controls have special rules that need to be followed. Billboard controls can contain only static controls, like Text or Bitmap controls, that do not allow user interaction. Radio button groups can contain only radio button controls.

Events and conditions​

This tab allows you to specify the behavior of your form. This tab page is divided into three tabs (visible at the bottom of this tab page): Control Events, Event Subscriptions, and Control Conditions. These are further described below.

Control events​

Control events are actions performed when controls are clicked by the user. For instance, a Cancel PushButton control would typically raise an EndDialog event which would close the form. Select a control from the drop-down list to add or change its control events. Right-click the event list to add a new event. Control events are executed in a particular order. You can change this order by either changing the Ordering property of an event or by right-clicking an event and choosing Move Up or Move Down from the menu. For more information about control events, see this MSI documentation topic.

Event subscriptions​

The event subscriptions tab allows you to configure Windows Installer events that some controls on your form listen for. For example, a progress bar could listen to a Windows Installer event telling it when to update its value. Select a control from the drop-down list to add or change its event subscriptions. Right-click the event list to add a new event subscription. For each event subscription, you can specify a Windows Installer event or a property name (in square brackets). For property names, if the property value changes, the event is triggered. Click here for more information on event subscriptions.

Control conditions​

Control conditions are conditional actions performed on a specified control. For example, you can show a control only if a certain condition is satisfied. Select a control from the drop-down list to add or change control conditions. Right-click the list to add a new conditional action. For more information, click here.