I don't mean compile and setup time. I mean time and effort for someone completely unfamiliar with the WiX source and whatever may be involved in rolling a custom bootstrapper (like myself and most other people on here who ask how to do what doesn't seem like a complex request).
Sure, for you and other WiX pros working on it for years, building the code and rolling your own custom BA is trivial. But for the rest of us non-WiX devs, especially those of us relatively new to it, it's far from trivial, and it seems like a lot (read: too much) to learn and figure out just a little UI change, like removing the UI, or adding a field, checkbox, label, or window/wizard step. My point is that you might want to consider making WiX-built installers' UIs easier for developers to customise without having to crack open and customise the source code (which I can only imagine can create problems when trying to keep up with updates to the main code). Alain -----Original Message----- From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 15:42 To: afor...@cmu.edu; General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] [SPAM] Re: Bootstrapper -- Can it be UI-less? On my 5 year old machine it takes 5 minutes to build all of the WiX toolset source. That isn't *that* long is it? Seems like a reasonable amount of time to build a project of our size. There is documentation in the WiX.chm with instructions how to build. On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Alain Forget <afor...@cmu.edu> wrote: Is there a tutorial somewhere on where to get the stock BA's source, and how to make various changes to it? The only tutorial I found involved cracking open Visual Studio, and seemed to involve recompiling the whole source and...yeah, a big hurdle to jump. -----Original Message----- From: Nicolás Alvarez [mailto:nicolas.alva...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 15:25 To: afor...@cmu.edu; General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] [SPAM] Re: Bootstrapper -- Can it be UI-less? The stock BA is open source. You don't need to start from scratch, just modify the stock one. -- Nicolás 2013/9/18 Alain Forget <afor...@cmu.edu>: > It just seems like going from the stock BA to rolling your own custom BA just to either get rid of the UI or add a single text box, radio button, or window/step seems extremely costly in time and effort for what seems like a minor modification. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hoover, Jacob [mailto:jacob.hoo...@greenheck.com] > Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 12:40 > To: afor...@cmu.edu; General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: RE: [WiX-users] [SPAM] Re: Bootstrapper -- Can it be UI-less? > > I believe the mantra is don't use installer UI's, use a BA UI. As such, if you need a custom UI then generate a BA to give the look and feel that you want. The reasoning behind having a BA UI is so you can have a single unified installation experience. Having a chain of 5 MSI's all exposing their own UI's would result in a choppy and subpar user experience. > > That being said, WiX is open source, so anyone is free to contribute enhancements. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alain Forget [mailto:afor...@cmu.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 11:31 AM > To: 'General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.' > Subject: Re: [WiX-users] [SPAM] Re: Bootstrapper -- Can it be UI-less? > > There seems to be a lot of demand for more control over installer and bootstrapper UIs. Just out of curiosity, is this being worked on for future WiX releases? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rob Mensching [mailto:r...@robmensching.com] > Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 12:27 > To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. > Subject: [WiX-users] [SPAM] Re: Bootstrapper -- Can it be UI-less? > > Yes. You'd need to create a custom BA. > > > On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 2:27 AM, nkshirsagar <nkshirsa...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi Rob and others on the mailing list! >> >> I'm wondering the same thing. I have a minimal UI msi that I've >> customised slightly with logos and banners. I want this UI to run >> immediately instead of the first screen that the botstrapper UI shows. >> (licence agreement, etc). >> The licence agreement gets shown twice as that screen is already in my >> MSI UI. All I need the bootstrapper for, is to install .net 4.5 if its >> not already present and then kick off my msi. >> >> Is there any way to achieve this ? >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LIMITED TIME SALE - Full Year of Microsoft Training For Just $49.99! 1,500+ hours of tutorials including VisualStudio 2012, Windows 8, SharePoint 2013, SQL 2012, MVC 4, more. BEST VALUE: New Multi-Library Power Pack includes Mobile, Cloud, Java, and UX Design. 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