How to make a custom dialog in InstallShield?

Question

I'm trying to understand InstallShield (2009)/InstallScript on the fly, because I'm modifying someone else's installation script.

One of the dialogs during the installation procedure previously had one textbox on it, asking for a SQL Server instance, assuming a certain database name. Now I've just completed an enhancement enabling you to choose any database name, not just the default, and I need to add a field to this dialog so the user can input the chosen DB name. Monkey see, monkey do, just make a new control and duplicate and adapt whatever functionality the form had for the first textbox - easy enough, right?

Umm... problem here. It seems that the "SdShowDlgEdit1" form is a generic thing that gets shipped with InstallShield, and is used all over, wherever you have a dialog that needs one textbox. Change that form, and it changes everywhere that it's called... so now I have a spurious 2nd textbox appearing all over my installation wherever there was a single text box before.

Oops. Undo changes, and change the reference to "SdShowDlgEdit2", which is - you guessed it - InstallShield's standard form for dialogs needing 2 textboxes. Now that would be great.... excepting that the previous developer got there before me and added a "browse" button to that form for a place where he needed the 2nd text box to contain a folder path. I don't want that "browse" button, and I can't delete it.

So I think, why don't I create a custom form of my own, and not get under anyone else's toes? So I clone the form, rename the new instance to "EnterDbDetails", delete the "Browse" button and make the form look just right.

Then I go back into the InstallScript to redirect to "EnterDbDetails" and discover that the EzDefineDialog function requires me to pass in the "Resource ID" of the form. Now what was it again... 12018... great... fill in all necessary details, compile, build, and give it a whirl. Looks lovely, all the right default values are filled into the two text boxes - but hey! Why is the browse button there? And why is the text on the labels not what I set?

Back to InstallScript, check the Resource ID - turns out that the original "SdShowDlgEdit2" also has a Resource ID of 12018. Well, that explains that nicely. Silly that InstallShield allows you to have two forms with the same ID, but whatever... So let's go back to my "EnterDbDetails" form and change the ID...

... but the Resource Identifier property is read-only! WTF?

So now I can't use any of the standard forms, and I can't use a custom form because it won't let me change the resource ID.

I am stumped. Can anyone please explain how you are supposed to do something like this, which really ought to be the simplest thing in the world?

Answer 1

Creating New Custom Dialogs in InstallScript and InstallScript MSI Projects

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Quote from the site (2015 edition) :

To create a custom dialog, you need to perform the following general steps:

1. Use the New Dialog Wizard to add a new custom dialog to your project. For more information, see Using the New Dialog Wizard to Add a New Custom Dialog to an InstallScript or InstallScript MSI Project.
2. Add controls to the dialog. For more information, see Adding a Control to a Dialog in an InstallScript or InstallScript MSI Project.
3. Create a script function that loads the dialog into memory, displays it on the screen, handles the end user’s interaction with the dialog’s controls, and closes the dialog when the user is finished with it. For more information, see Using InstallScript to Implement Custom Dialogs.

Answer 2

To create a new dialog: Open the Dialogs view. The Dialogs view is located in the User Interface section of the View List. Right-click the All Dialogs explorer and then click New Dialog. The Dialog Wizard opens. Click Next to dismiss the Welcome panel. In the Dialog Template panel, click Interior Wizard Panel, and select the Let me insert this dialog in a User Interface sequence check box. In the User Interface panel, select Installation in the User Interface Sequence list. In the list of dialogs, select InstallWelcome. Based on these selections, InstallShield will insert your new dialog in sequence immediately following the InstallWelcome dialog. In the Dialog Position and Condition panel, leave the default settings, and click Finish. Your new dialog appears in the Dialogs list. Right-click the dialog and select Rename. Rename the dialog WelcomeBitmap. Using the same technique, you can insert additional dialogs in your installation’s user interface.

In this step, you will modify the WelcomeBitmap dialog that you just created: First, create a bitmap (using a program like Microsoft Paint) that measures 300 by 150. Open the Dialogs view. Expand the WelcomeBitmap dialog’s node. Click English (United States) to open the Dialog Editor. Click the Dialog Bold Title text box at the top of the dialog. In the Text field, type Welcome Bitmap. This changes the dialog’s main title. Click the Dialog Normal Description text box at the top of the dialog. In the Text field, type Displays my welcome bitmap. This changes the dialog’s description. Click the Bitmap button on the Dialog Control toolbar and use the cursor to drag a box on the dialog. Set the Height to 150 and the Width to 300. In the File field browse to the bitmap file that you created in step 1. After rebuilding the project (by pressing F7) and running it (by pressing CTRL+F5), the Welcome Bitmap dialog will appear after the Install Welcome dialog.

Answer 3

You need to edit the ResourceID (to something unique) in the Dialog table which is found in the Direct Editor under Additional Tools section in the Installation Designer.

Answer 4

By custimizing standard InstallShield dialogs, like sdWelcome, sdFinish and sdFinishReboot you will be able to use the dialogs default script APIs with the performed customization's