Windows
Installer documentation| Reference information | |
|---|---|
| Project page | Dialogs and Billboards |
| Related topics | Working with attribute panes |
| External links | Windows
Installer documentation |
A Dialog box acts as a parent window for one or more controls. Dialog boxes are used to implement the installer's user interface sequence; a typical installer's user interface consists of a series of dialog boxes with Next and Back buttons that take the user through the installation steps. In addition to the main installation sequence, there may be additional dialog boxes that are used for secondary purposes, such as confirmation messages or special warnings.
Except for the first one, the order of the dialog boxes in the user interface is determined by Control Events in the various dialog boxes. The first dialog box is specified by a Run Dialog action in one of the user interface-related action sequences (AdminUISequence or InstallUISequence).
For example, to specify the successor of a given dialog box, you must add a New Dialog control event to the Next button of the first dialog, then use the name of the second dialog as the argument of the control event. As a result, most dialog boxes are tied to a specific sequence and position in that sequence; if you want to use the same dialog box in a different sequence, you must create a copy and link the copy into the new sequence.
Dialog boxes may be modal (the user must close the dialog box before continuing with the next action) or modeless (the user and the installer may perform additional actions while the dialog box is open). A Windows Installer dialog box must be marked Modal for modal behavior, else it is modeless.
The Tarma Installer equivalent is the Dialog
(Tarma) . However, the Tarma Installer dialog box sequences are specified
in separate action sequences. Furthermore, the modal or modeless behavior
of a Tarma Installer dialog box is determined by the Run
Dialog action that opens the dialog box, not by the dialog box itself.
As a result, a typical Tarma Installer allows reuse of a dialog box in different
contexts and usually requires fewer dialog boxes than the equivalent Windows
Installer.
This pane contains the following attributes and options.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Dialog name |
Enter the internal name for the dialog box. All dialog names must be unique within the Windows Installer section of project. |
| Caption | Enter the text for the dialog box caption. |
| Position |
Specify the initial screen position for the dialog box as a relative screen position from 0 to 100, horizontally and vertically. 0 corresponds to the left or top edge of the (primary) monitor; 100 to the right or bottom edge. Other values are used in proportion, so (50, 50) corresponds to the center of the screen. Windows Installer only uses this setting for the first dialog box; subsequent dialog boxes are shown in the same position as the previous one, regardless of their own Position setting. This allows the user to move an installer dialog box out of the way if necessary, with any subsequent dialog boxes staying out of the way as well. |
| Visible | Check this box to make the dialog box initially visible; clear it to hide the dialog box. |
| Minimize |
Check this box to display a minimize button in the dialog box' title bar; clear it to omit the button. Note: If you check this box, then a disabled maximize button will also appear. |
| Modal | Check this box to make the dialog box modal; clear it to make it modeless. Windows Installer requires that all dialog boxes in the installation wizard sequence be modal; if not, the installer ends prematurely. Dialog boxes outside the main sequence may be modal or modeless as required. |
| SysModal |
Check this box to make the dialog box system-wide modal; clear it for normal dialog behavior. A system-wide modal dialog box appears at the top of the Z-order on the screen. Note: This style is a holdover from 16-bit Windows versions, where it would block access to all other applications. However, under 32-bit and later Windows versions, this is no longer the case. |
| Don't mirror |
Setting this style keeps the dialog box' orientation as it is and does not mirror it for languages that use a right-to-left (RTL) reading order; clearing it mirrors the dialog box for RTL languages. This option only has effect for languages that use an RTL reading order, such as Arabic and Hebrew; for other languages it is ignored. Note: If a dialog box is mirrored, all its controls are also mirrored unless you set their Don't mirror attributes separately. |
| Keep modeless | Check this box to keep other (modeless) dialog boxes open when the current dialog box is opened; clear it to close all other dialog boxes when the current one is opened. |
| Track disk space |
Check this box to notify the controls in the dialog box of changes in the available disk space; clear it to ignore them. This option is required if the dialog box contains a control that indicates the available disk space, for example through the PrimaryVolumeSpaceAvailable property. |
| Custom palette |
Check this box to use the color palette from the first Bitmap control in the dialog; clear it to use a generic (halftone) palette. This option is useful if the dialog box contains bitmap images that use the common, non-standard palette, ot one image that has a custom palette. However, if the dialog box contains several bitmap images that have their own palettes, the generic palette will probably give better overall results. |
| Error dialog |
Check this box to designate the dialog box as an error dialog box; clear it for a regular dialog box. Error dialog boxes must have an ErrorText static text control and also a full set of Yes, No, OK, Cancel, Abort, Ignore, and Retry PushButton controls. There may be several error dialog boxes in the installer, but the installer uses the one designated by the ErrorDialog property. By default, the predefined ErrorDlg dialog box is configured as the installer's error dialog box. |