Bugs item #1655432, was opened at 2007-02-08 18:28
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by ferrysoft
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Category: wixui
Group: v3.0
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 4
Private: No
Submitted By: Simon Harrison (ssmmhh)
Assigned to: Bob Arnson (barnson)
Summary: Irritating flicker when launching an installer with WIXUI

Initial Comment:
I don't know if this is specific to Win2k3 (which I'm running it on).  I took 
the latest version and modified wix\examples\first\product.wxs, added 
WIXUI_INSTALLDIR property and UIRef element.

You could live with it for the odd open-source project, but I think for any 
commercial use this would be unacceptable.  The flicker is still there in v3 
but different in nature.



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Comment By: Mike Green (ferrysoft)
Date: 2007-02-10 00:17

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I think the all too brief display of the two modeless dialogs that Bob
describes will occur, even on installers with a realistic number of files.
For example, I’ve got an installer containing about 120 files. I can
offer two example experiences, using that installer:

On a 450 MHz PC with 256 MB RAM, only the first dialog displays its text,
long enough to read. It is quite easy to discern the first dialog as it is
a different size to the second dialog. The second dialog is
indistinguishable from the modal dialog and there is just a fleeting
feeling that some text has been displayed and then been blanked out. I’d
still describe the visual appearance of that as a ‘flicker’.

On a faster 2 GHz PC with 1 GB RAM, the first dialog is just discernable
by its different size but the text isn’t displayed long enough to read.
The second dialog is too fast to even generate a ‘flicker’.

So, in the real world, I’d suggest that there will be a range of
installation scenarios. At one end will be some that flash up the modeless
dialogs almost too quickly to notice, and leave you feeling as though the
installer is buggy. At the other end will be some that display the
modeless dialogs long enough to comfortably read them. The challenge is to
make the WiX modeless dialog behave reasonably across that wide range.

Perhaps the WiX modeless dialog could have a minimum display time. Better
still, perhaps it could only appear if the process that it is covering
will take longer than a certain threshold time.

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Comment By: Simon Harrison (ssmmhh)
Date: 2007-02-09 22:45

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Yes, flicker, was perhaps not the ideal choice of words.  Once I had
added
extra files to the installer, I then got to read the dialogs, so I guess
that's the work-around.  Since there will be very few installers that
will
be so small in size, I guess it's not really a bug.  Might be worth a FAQ
entry, to re-assure people trying out wix for the first time though.

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Comment By: Bob Arnson (barnson)
Date: 2007-02-09 18:28

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There are two modeless dialogs that appear in a typical WixUI installer
before the "hi, I'm the wizard" modal dialog with a Next button. The first
comes from MSI and says "preparing to install." MSI shows it while it opens
the .msi and determines what kind of UI is authored (and many other
things). The second is a "preparing" dialog that stays up during
AppSearch, costing, and so forth. With fast IO (e.g., local drive -v-
network) or a small package, those dialogs appear and close quickly.

I wouldn't call it flicker but the preparing dialog and the first modal
page have a similar layout, so making them look very different might help
prevent it looking like it's one dialog. I'll keep this bug open for
future work.

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Comment By: Mike Green (ferrysoft)
Date: 2007-02-09 12:14

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I’ve noticed this issue as well. I think it is due to the text in the
initial setup window changing very quickly.

Initially it displays:

"Please wait while the Setup Wizard prepares to guide you through the
installation. Computing space requirements"

That text is then replaced with:

"The Setup Wizard will install <Application Name> on your computer. Click
Next to continue or Cancel to exit the Setup Wizard."

On my system, the text changes almost instantaneously. It happens so
quickly that it took me several attempts to capture a screen image of the
initial text. The rapidity of the text change produces a flicker effect
from the user’s perspective.

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Comment By: Bob Arnson (barnson)
Date: 2007-02-09 06:16

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I can't really comment about the problem without more detail. What
flickers? 

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