My Wix Journey - Day 16 @ 9:26pm EDT
Despite the lack of blog posts, I've really been immersed in WiX. I'm learning to love and hate this project. I really love the XML declarative style of creating MSIs. I really hate the fact that WiX wraps the abomination known as Windows installer.
I was very familiar with Windows Installer before this adventure. I've spent years working with both InstallShield and Wise, and have had to edit raw MSI tables many times in the past. However, these commercial products do a much better job of hiding the complexities of Windows Installer than WiX does. If you decide to adopt WiX, make certain that you have the time to invest in learning the ins and outs of the MSI SDK. Even if you think that you know quite a bit in this area, be prepared to spend some time spelunking through MSI.chm.
Writing Custom Actions using WiX isn't a walk in the park, either. I'll talk a bit about managed CAs a bit in the future. Hopefully people will learn from my trials and tribulations in this area.
Just to make sure that this blog entry has some substance, I'm going to give my WiX UI tip of the day:
To define the default font, place the following in the <UI/> section:
<UI>
<Property Id="DefaultUIFont">Tahoma8</Property>
<TextStyle Id="Tahoma8" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="8" />
<!-- rest of UI (dialogs, etc) go here. -->
<UI>