I'm trying to design some dialogs for a project I'm working on and I'm finding that the selection of controls provided by IS2012 is kinda lacking in both choice and functionality.
Is it possible to add custom controls, and if so, can someone point me to some reference material on how to do it?
Some of the things I'm looking for is a TreeView, and perhaps the ability to specify a context menu for items within it. LinkLabels that can open a modal window would be nice, too.
Basically, just some controls that approach being close to what you can do with the stock Visual Studio controls.
A prime example of the need I'm facing, is that I'm wanting to create dialogs for dealing with IIS.... and without a TreeView control, it is pretty much impossible to show IIS (or ANY web server) with the native hierarchical structure that admins are accustomed to working with when doing management tasks with their servers.
I want to be able to show a listing of available site with all apps/virtual directories under each site as they should be shown.
The controls available in a Basic MSI project are limited by the controls supported by the undrelying Windows Installer. However if you use an InstallScript project type you can write your own UI in C++ and tie it to your InstallScript. The skys the limit at that point.
However there's no off the shelf solution ( by any vendor ) that I'm aware of that allows you to do cool things like create a WPF Xaml wizard and use it as the external UI handler for an MSI.
You can also look at some of the new functionality in Suite Installers but I doubt it'll meet your needs.
Cool, thanks for the reply, Chris. I didn't realize that the limitation was Windows Installer and not InstallShield. That seems incredibly silly, IMO.
However if you use an InstallScript project type you can write your own UI in C++ and tie it to your InstallScript.
Can you point me to anything that can give me a high-level view of how best to get started with something like this? Or, something with some sample code??
