Modify the template.msi file to allow more room for text.

[JHC Software]

The problem with text not fitting in the dialogs has been mentioned before:

http://www.advancedinstaller.com/forums ... .php?t=417

I've also found that I've had to edit several fields in the template.msi file to make the text boxes higher (I typically double their size) to ensure that text will wrap correctly and not be cut-off when it doesn't fit.

These problems are not on my PC, but on a testers, so I can't say for sure what causes this, but I presume it must be larger or wider fonts being used.

My suggestion is to simply modify all the dialog text controls in the template.msi file so that their heights are all maximised to allow wrapping, but not too large that they clash with other controls (obviously).

Is this possible? I currently have a list of a few controls that I know cause problems in my installers which I can use to update the template.msi file whenever there is an upgrade, but I'd much prefer not to have to do that.

[Cata]

Good points. But then the dialogs would look pretty big and empty with small fonts, and short strings.

On the other hand, since in certain languages the strings are longer, this system must also take i18n into consideration...

So the right solution is to allow customization of dialogs, i18n dependent. We are working on it.

The next version AI will have all the UI in XML files instead of template.msi and you'll be able to have overwrites in AIP. Also, you'll have the ability to specify translation for other languages.

Future versions will add nice customization UIs.

What do you think?
Cata

[JHC Software]

I wasn't planning on changing they way it would look, the changes would be invisible unless they were needed.

For example, in the WelcomeDlg, the "Description" control has a height of 30. This can cause the problem text to get truncated. Changing the height to 60 fixed this, allowing the text to wrap onto a new line. It doesn't affect the appearance of the dialog (it's still the same size, just more room for expansion). It still looks the same with large and small fonts, just not truncated.

For this, I guessed at the size increase of 60 so it wouldn't touch any other controls... but with some effort most of the controls could be made taller in a similar way.

Does this make sense?

[Cata]

Got it. Send us your list of controls that can be expanded that way and we'll change them in template.msi, if they don't affect the dialog size or other control's layout.

Thanks,
Cata

[JHC Software]

Thanks. I've emailed you my small list of controls.