Sample dialog and banner images are wrong size

[Warrigal]

The default dialog size of the samples supplied with the Microsoft Platform SDK are 370x270 installer units. Fortunately, Advanced Installer uses the same size. This equates to 370x270 pixels on a 72dpi screen, 493x360 on a 96dpi screen and 616x450 on a 120dpi screen. (Most people seem to use a 96dpi screen, although 120dpi is becoming more and more prevalent with laptops and LCD screens. I use both.)

The sample dialog and banner images supplied with Advanced Installer are apparently designed for a 96dpi screen. However, the images are the wrong size. The dialog images are 503x314. They should be 493x312. The banner images are 500x63. They should be 493x58. To prove this, I ran the following tests:

1. Create a dialog and banner image using the Advanced Installer sizes. Each image has a 1 pixel red border and a black and white dithered (checkerboard) fill pattern.

2. Create a test installer using the above images.

3. Build the installer using fixed-size images (Global Properties > Theme > Bitmap Display > Keep original picture size). Result: Dialog and banner images are both cropped (red border missing) on a 96dpi screen.

4. Rebuild the installer using stretched images (Global Properties > Theme > Bitmap Display > Stretch with fonts). Result: Red border is visible, but checkerboard pattern is squashed (black lines displayed).

5. Create a dialog and banner image using the correct sizes and repeat steps 3 and 4. Result: Both fixed-size and stretched images are perfect on a 96dpi screen.

Could you replace the sample images with the correct sizes in the next release?

[Cosmin]

Hi,

Please note that the black lines are caused by the stretching algorithm used by Windows Installer. Unfortunately, this algorithm is not very good and it causes multiple problems.

Also, the images used by Advanced Installer are a little bigger then the standard Windows Installer dialogs. This is because on systems which use a large font size a small image would look very bad (if the image has a higher resolution it will look better). Therefore, as long as we use the Windows Installer UI we cannot modify this behavior.

Regards,
Cosmin

[Warrigal]

You can fix this behaviour by using the correct image size as I suggested. Every other installer that I've been testing does this and they have no problem. Yours has a problem because it is cropped if you use fixed-size and shrunk (because of the Windows Installer algorithm, as you correctly stated) if you use stretched-size. Because others may be interested in this and may wonder why their images never look quite right, I have included an attachment showing the test results.

Note that if the user's screen is not 96dpi or the user has selected a bigger system font size, then you want the images to scale to suit. For this reason, you should NEVER use fixed-sized images.

[Warrigal]

P.S. I forgot to mention something. Has anyone noticed that Advanced Installer uses a different width for dialog and banner images? Where's the logic in that?

[Cosmin]

Hi,

When we implemented this feature in Advanced Installer we used the sizes recommended in the Windows SDK (the "UISample.Msi" package). In the sample package from the SDK, the dialog and banner images are a little larger than the dialogs.

However, we will investigate this issue and implement a solution as soon as possible. Thank for bringing this to our attention.
Until then, you can modify the images manually.

Regards,
Cosmin

[michaelthibeault]

Any updates on that.
I do have a similar problem.

[Catalin]

Hello,

I have answered your other forum thread here.

Best regards,
Catalin