There is a "HeatTask" provided by the WiX toolset already. Getting the GUIDs right is the hardest part of "autogenerating" .wxs files. The Windows Installer is brutally unforgiving for messing up your Component/@Guids.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Neil Sleightholm Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 00:30 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.; General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Automating the inclusion of a mess of files Neil Have you considered using a variant of Heat to generate the WiX code dynamically? I have done this sort of think in v2 using a tool called mallow (it is a variant of tallow) I think you should find it on the web if you search but if not let me know and I send you a copy. It can scan a folder full of files and generate WiX code and manage the GUIDs for you so it shouldn't break the component rules. I know this sort of thing it considered bad but in the real world we have to consider things like this! Neil Neil Sleightholm X2 Systems Limited [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Neil Enns Sent: Fri 11/07/2008 07:01 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: [WiX-users] Automating the inclusion of a mess of files My application will wind up shipping with a ton of loose resource files on disk*. We will have several items with the following well-defined structure: MyFile1.foo MyFile1_files \ 0 \ somefile.txt \ 1 \ somefile.txt ... \ 9 \ somefile.txt This is how the files live on disk as source, and how we need them to live on disk on the target machine. As you can imagine, I have no desire to author the WiX to install these suckers by hand, especially since they're going to change relatively often between now and when we ship. I want to automate the process somehow. I started tonight by thinking a custom extension would do. My plan was to create a new <MyFile> element that took the root .foo file, then would automatically add all the necessary entries into the MSI for all the files and subdirectories. I got a custom extension up and running pretty quickly, but when it came time to actually think about adding the things to the MSI this approach seemed, well, insane. I have no desire to recreate what the <File>, <Directory>, and <Component> elements do in code. My new alternate approach is to do this via a custom MSBuild task that runs before Candle and generates a WiX file that then gets added to the list of things to compile. Anyone have any other suggestions for good ways to automate this? Thanks, Neil * Don't ask why we have this structure and why they are loose files. It's a very long story best told over a frosty beverage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW! Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project, along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08 _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
