Good points, John. I also follow(ed) that philosophy. When it comes to immediate actions, there are lots of considerations that I did not mention. The immediate action is a great place to put checks in for situations where the deferred action will always fail (like if deploying a DB but the connection string is invalid) - and fail in the immediate action when possible/predictable. Also, you need to make sure your disk space costing is also correct in your immediate action (Add to ReserveCost table), especially if you are unpacking something in the deferred action. There is a huge list of other things along those lines you could/should do in immediate actions.
That said, it is unavoidable in many cases to have 'simple' deferred actions, especially when doing non-trivial things - like editing an XML file and all the testing that goes along with that - with and without schemas and namespaces, etc. You may still need to be able to unit test those as well, and that is outside the scope of what Lux is for, especially when the CA to MSI API is so limited. I wanted to present the answer that he may need to test custom actions both with and without Lux... Good discussion, though. It brings back some fond (and not so fond) memories. Steve On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 9:38 AM, John Cooper <jocoo...@jackhenry.com> wrote: > I do use Lux, and I am expanding my use of it. Some of my custom actions > (particular the family that implements vsdbcmd.exe database deploy) have > complex immediate custom action components (e.g., unpacking the deployment > engine to a temporary location, building an appropriate command line, and > setting up a deferred action to clean up the mess). Lux has been VERY > helpful in validating the these actions. > > By contrast, the deferred actions are purposefully very simple (e.g., call > vsdbcmd.exe with a previously-built command line). > > And that, I believe, is the greatest strength of Lux--it encourages a > design philosophy where the deferred custom actions are very linear and the > logic resides nearly entirely in the immediate actions. > > -- > John Merryweather Cooper > Build & Install Engineer - ESA > Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.(r) > Shawnee Mission, KS 66227 > Office: 913-341-3434 x791011 > jocoo...@jackhenry.com > www.jackhenry.com > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users