Dialog customization problem

JonPerkins · Post by **JonPerkins** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:35 am

Hi, technically I'm evaluating your product but actually I'm so pleased with it that I'm now developing with the evaluation version until I get the formal order placed. I'm assembling a couple of projects - one simple and one slightly more complex and I have encountered the same specific problems with both projects. Can anybody help?

1. I'm working with the Attractive theme. If I make any change to the dialog, in my case adding a company logo bitmap, then the blue.avi stops working - it displays as a white empty box in dev mode (once I've saved and closed, and then reopened the form) and as a non-moving image in run mode. If I try to I try to re-set the name of this file as blue.avi (which is declared in the Support files section) when editing the dialog then I get Invalid Property Value. There is an additional property for this control called Active but if I set it to True then again I get Invalid Property Value. Trying to add a new Animate control to the form also refuses to accept the file name, and there is no documentation for this control

2. If I try and run either of my applications directly from Windows then they work OK, but if I try to run them via the Dynamic Scan Wizard then they both crash. Is this generally a known problem, or something nobody else has heard of (i.e. something on my setup).

Thanks, and seems like a great product. Things are generally very intuitive, with just the odd feature that I would normally take for granted which is missing (e.g. drag and drop in the Files section).

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:00 pm

1. Try to reset your theme back to the original Attractive.
2. If you cannot do that, open the "*.baggage" files found in the same folder as your dialogs and make sure that the avi file they reference does not have a path appended in front of it - just the full filename and extension.
3. If you cannot find any baggage files, copy the originals over from the Attractive theme folder.

The baggage file is how InstallAware keeps track of files that are required to be present alongside your dialogs for animations. Normally the baggage is managed automatically but the above steps should help fix the issue when a problem occurs.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:01 pm

I am not sure what the issue with dynamic scan is. Registry redirection is used during dynamic scanning and therefore your application might be failing if it cannot find registry entries that it is looking for.

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:29 pm

InstallAware folks: Has there been any action taken on problem #1 in this post? It's been just shy of two years since this problem was reported and I am seeing this same issue in IA 8.01. The gray.avi animation in the progress dialog of the Titanium theme is not animated when I run the installer.

Obviously the suggestion of changing the theme back to what it originally was is not a reasonable workaround because if I try to, IA warns, "All customizations made to your existing dialogs will be lost! Are you sure you want to overwrite all your dialogs with base versions from the Official theme." As you can imagine, no, I do not want to overwrite all of the customizations I have made. I simply want the avi to be animated when the dialog is displayed as the installer is running.

Do you have a fix for this issue?

Tiago · Post by **Tiago** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:21 pm

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:27 am

I have the same problem. I've created a new setup based on the Attractive theme. The blue.avi is still in place, but it's not visible in design mode and displayed as a non-moving picture during runtime.

I've tried to edit the dfm.baggage-files as it was mentioned in another thread, but it does not change anything. I've also tried to copy and paste the original animate control ... no luck.

When I delete the filename blue.avi and try to re-enter it afterwards, I get the error message 'Invalid property value'.

The blue.avi is included in the support files.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:08 am

Here's some AVI tips:

Make sure the AVI is added as a support file to your install,

To work with that file in the dialog designer, copy the same AVI file using the same name to your <Install>\\interop\\templates subfolder,

Ensure the Active property of the AVI control is TRUE (it will reset to FALSE after changing the AVI file name),

Ensure you specify no path in the AVI file name while editing the dialog,

Ensure the .baggage file also references the AVI file name without a path (you may want to verify this by opening the file in Notepad after saving your dialog in the dialog designer).

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:26 am

- The AVI is in the support files
- The AVI exists in C:\\Program Files\\InstallAware\\InstallAware 9\\interop\\templates
- The Active property is set to False (!) If I try to change this, I get an error: "Invalid property value".
- The AVI file name includes no path, just the filename and extention
- The .baggage-file contains only the filename (I've had to create this file manually since it was not created by IA9).

If I'm clearing the property value of filename and try to re-enter blue.avi, I still get an error "Invalid property value".

The funny thing is that the file is displayed when I test the form, the only thing is, that it's not animated. So obviously IA can find the file ... only the interface designer cannot.

Anything else to try?

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 11:20 am

I really think someone from InstallAware should have a look at this issue. It's fairly easy to reproduce:

1. Create a new setup from Template "Basic Setup".
2. Change the theme to Attractive
3. Under Dialogs open the progressprereq dialog
4. Select the animate control, press CTRL+C
5. Close the editor, open the welcome dialog
6. Paste the control with CTRL+V
7. Try to set the property Active to True

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:18 pm

I've just tried to repro with 9.06 on one of our lab machines, and not had any issues ....

*shrug*

Can you submit a sample project built on one of your machines?

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:16 am

I'll send you a sample project in a minute by mail.

I've observed the following:
1. when I copy and paste the animate control from one dialog to another IA9 creates no baggage file
2. Even if I create the baggage file manually it does not work
3. the baggage files from the working dialogs (e.g. progress) do contain the path to the avi, not only the filename. These files have automatically been created by IA9 ...

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:47 am

Anything new? Have you received my sample project? Have you been able to reproduce this issue?

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:19 pm

Hi there,

I can't see your email anywhere ... can you send again? [email protected]

ohali · Post by **ohali** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:35 am

I've sent the mail again tonight. Have you received it?

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:52 pm

Not a thing

Can you confirm that it is purely a script package, and no exe's, dll's etc (and that its compressed!)?