Separate Publish Event from Control - wix

Question

I have a UI dialog which is common to several WiX projects.
But according to the project, the dialog before (Back) or after (Next) that common UI may be different.
To avoid code duplication, I would like to have the common dialog alone (without the Publish Event) and the Publish Event for that UI defined in each WiX project.
Is it possible and how to do this?

Answer 1

Yes it is, you could just have a look at the wix source code under src\ext\uiextension\wixlib. You'll notice that all the dialogs are in their own file and the UI sets are separated.
For example, in WixUI_Mondo.wxs, you have DialogRef tags to import your dialogs and a bunch of Publish tags to reorder the sequence. In, say, InstallDirDlg, there are the controls, and next to no Publish tags.
Your UI would look like:
<UI Id="MyUI">
<DialogRef="WelcomeDlg"/>
<DialogRef="InstallDirDlg"/>
<Publish Dialog="WelcomeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="InstallDirDlg">CONDITION</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="WelcomeDlg">1</Publish>
</UI>
And in your dialog's file:
<UI>
<Dialog Id="WelcomeDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="Welcome">
<Control ... />
</Dialog>
</UI>
You can also have multiple InstallUISequence tags in your project. So if your dialog will always call a custom action, or be shown before another, you might as well put it in that file.
You can download the source code here