Reference for possible String ID's in WixLocalization? - wix

I am finding WIX to be nearly impenetrable.
I want to customize the text in various dialogs in the WixUI_FeatureTree.
I've seen Customizing Text in the standard WIX Dialogs, so I get the basic idea that I need a .wxl file, and I need to fill it with <String ...> elements. But what Id's are available?
Q1: where is the list of Id's for the various supported strings?
side comment:
Am I just looking in the wrong place? I'm looking in the Wix doc, but nothing is obvious. Figuring out this Wix stuff is much harder than I expected it to be. It is not easily discoverable, at all.

You basically have to download the WiX source code, and go through it's WXL files, find the text you want to override, then use that ID.
The code is the reference.
Hang in there. WiX/MSI starts to make sense at about your fourth installer.

Related

Change style of PivotItemHeader

I currently try to change the visual style of my pivot control in UWP.
I would like to change the plain default style of "just text" to something like this:
This is just an example I quickly found on the web. But it is a good representation of what I want to achieve.
I would like to make the pivot items to look like they are tabs.
They should be visibly seperated from another and when one of the items is selected I want to make it visually stand out from the others.
I'm really new to styling controls. I actually just started to read about it yesterday. But it really helps to make an app visually interesting instead of just the plain default styles.
I would really appreciate some help or guidance here :)
Greetings :)
We can modify the PivotHeaderItem default style to implement the effect. Here is also a similar thread that describes how to achieve it : Pivot Header style
Please note that: the PivotHeaderItem default style is based on the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 10, Version 1511 (Windows SDK version 10.0.10586.0). If your app target on other version, the styles and resources may be have different values. But the approach to implement the effect is similar. You can find the corresponding source in the path of your Windows SDK installation such as:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\DesignTime\CommonConfiguration\Neutral\UAP\10.0.16299.0\Generic.

Giving WixUIExtension dialogs a slightly more modern look

I feel that the dialogs provided by the WixUIExtension have a look that remembers me of Windows 95.
Example screenshot from an example of the WiX Tutorial built with WiX 3.10 (*cough* on Win 7):
(I know how to replace the bitmaps.) The icons (disks, folders) have 16 colors, text boxes and combo boxes look quite old.
Maybe I missed something obvious.
Is there a way to give these dialogs a slightly more modern look without rewriting them from scratch?
You can replace the bitmaps and icons but the controls and their appearance are part of MSI and can't be changed. That's one of the reasons I use Burn bundles even when I don't have a chain -- it requires coding but the UI can be completely controlled.

How can I change the text in the Wix installer dialog?

My text message is stuck to "Install My Product to:"
How can I change this?
("My Product" is the name of my product and the string above is resolved based on the Name attribute in my Product.wxs).
I have 2 dialogs and the second requires a different message.
Some text on the built-in dialogs can be changed with variables specified in the localization file for your language. This is a simpler task than if you are trying to change text that is not kept in a variable.
This process is documented here.
However, if that's the case, the recommended way to change the dialog on the install page is to make a copy of and change the template file(s) provided with the WiX installation.
Copy the relevant .wxs files from your WiX dialog extension set (you will need to make sure you installed the WiX source) you want to modify and copy the file that specifies the UI extension name. Modify it to suit your needs and change the names.
When you compile your installer, you will use your new extension name (referring to your modified dialog set) and tell candle/light where your modified .wxs files are.
This process has some good documentation here and here.
Following the entire tutorial at the second link should get you pretty far.
Good luck

WiX Minimal UI shows first lines empty with Arabic text

I'm using WiX 3.7 I managed to get WiX Minimal UI to work properly following the instructions from http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/wixui/wixui_dialog_library.html
When I used Arabic Licence file is shown incorrectly (first lines are blank), unless user scrolls the text area in which case the text starts to look as expected.
I already tried the advice from the page http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/wixui/wixui_customizations.html
Open your RTF file in WordPad and save it from there in order to remove the complex RTF content from the file. After saving it, rebuild your MSI.
My current approach is to write a Custom EULA Dialog, but I would prefer to stay with WiX UI Minimal builtin Dialog... Have you experienced this problem? Do you know how to overcome it?

Are tables supported when displaying RTF files in Windows Installer

I'm creating a Windows Installer setup file using Wix and the standard UI library. I've supplied my own RTF file for the license agreement, but tables are not displaying correctly. Are tables supported in this case, and if so, what do I need to do to get them to display?
Basically, the cell border is only being drawn around the first line of text in a cell, and text from the 2nd column is flowing into the the first column. Here's a picture:
Badly formatted tables in RTF file displaying in Windows Installer http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/58fc5187b7.png
This thread discusses problems with RTF in installers, Bob Arnson recommends using WordPad to save the file. Apparently, that will create a simpler file which is more likely to display correctly.
The Windows Installer ScrollableText control doesn't support complex RTF, basically try to keep your RTF as simple as possible, always save in Wordpad and if it doesn't look like it's going to work.. it probably isn't.