When using WiX, I found that most of the development time is spend on building a user interface. Fortunately WiX provides a library with some default dialog sets. Those dialog sets provide a familiar wizard-style user interface and can help you build MSI files much faster. At the WiX website you can read which dialog sets are available in the WiX library.
In most cases these dialog sets will provide the user experience you need, although you might want to change the background image, banner image or change the license text to give the MSI a custom look and feel.
With WiX 2 this can be accomplished by placing the appropriate image files in a sub-folder of the current directory in which the wixobj file is located. The sub-folder should be named: Bitmaps. In this directory files can be placed that must be used by light.exe instead of the defaults. These files must have specific names and dimension. In the table below the different filenames, and dimensions are mentioned:
File name |
Description |
Dimensions |
bannrbmp.bmp |
Top banner bitmap |
500 × 63 |
dlgbmp.bmp |
Background bitmap used on welcome and install-complete dialogs |
503 × 314 |
exclamic.ico |
Exclamation icon on the wait-for-costing dialog |
32 × 32 |
info.ico |
Information icon on the cancel and error dialogs |
32 × 32 |
New.ico |
Button icon on directory-browse dialog |
16 × 16 |
Up.ico |
Button icon on directory-browse dialog |
16 × 16 |
The license text can be updated by placing a License.rtf file in the in the directory were the wixobj file is located.
Unfortunately this trick doesn’t work anymore with WiX 3. This doesn’t mean that it is not possible to change the images or license text. With WiX 3 you can specify the images, icons and license text by providing the path to those files as arguments on the command line. The following arguments are available for this:
Property name |
Description |
WixUIBannerBmp |
Path to the top banner bitmap |
WixUIDialogBmp |
Path to the background bitmap used on welcome and install-complete dialogs |
WixUIExclamationIco |
Path to the exclamation icon on the wait-for-costing dialog |
WixUIInfoIco |
Path to the information icon on the cancel and error dialogs |
WixUINewIco |
Path to the button icon on directory-browse dialog |
WixUIUpIco |
Path to the button icon on directory-browse dialog |
WixUILicenseRtf |
Path to the license file |
Specify the argument on the command line in the following way:
Light.exe <some_wixobj_file> -dWixUILicenseRtf=[Path-to-License-file]
3 comments
Found out that these variables are also available in your .wxs as WixVariable.
manuelr
dimensions are correct for 2.x for 3.x the dimension differ
see http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/tutorial/user-interface/ui-wizardry
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