Finally managed to get back to doing some more Wix things this week.  Since the last post I have added components to :

•  Prompt the user for windows groups of valid users (5 of them)
• Create a blank SQL Database
• Add the groups to the SQL Server users
• Add the groups to the appropriate database roles
• Configures the web application for .Net 2

I’ve also added this into my Team Build project so that I get a nice new clean MSI for every successful build.

Today, I’ve extracted a few Wix snippets and I’m making these available to anyone who wants them.  There’s not much in there yet but hopefully it will save someone some time.  Do with them as you will!  If you have more and would like to start building a library of snippets then I’m more than willing to act as a librarian for these – unless someone else has already done this – in which case you can have mine.

Download: Wix_20060526.snippet

Tim & Nic have been having a few thoughts about browsers and home pages of late and it got me thinking about how I do things.  I'm mostly like Nic - I open IE 6 about 20-100 times a day and I often have 4 or 5 instances running.  Yes, I've tried IE 7 but for work it was too unstable.  I've also tried MSN toolbar for tab pages and Google toolbar but all they do is get in the way.  I don't do any web dev work so IE 6 is more than adequate for me. At Home I use IE 7 as I can put up with a few issues there.

My typical usage pattern is to open IE, go to Google and search for something technical about a development problem I'm having. No custom home page is going to make that any easier than Google. I use BlogLines for RSS feeds so that I can read stuff at home and work - I used to use NewsGator but it broke a while ago and I didn't like any of the other aggregators I tried - they were mostly too slow and buggy.

I'm also not very good at saving favorites - mostly because I have too many, it's just easier to search each time.  Sometimes, I wish I had saved a hard to find link in my fav's but usually I just have to repeat the 12 searches it took to find the page the first time.

If I was to have a customisable home page it would have to be:

• FAST.  I mean REALLY FAST - like INSTANT - therefore local and static
• Editable in the browser
• Synchronisable with my other machines

• Email is received.  Receiving server check's it's white-list of senders and finds that the email address is unknown.
• Receiving server pings the senders domain email server and asks it to verify the address.
• If the senders server doesn't respond at all then it's most likely spam and email is gray-listed
• If the senders server responds with an OK response then the email is let through - at least to the next level of checkinig.
• If the senders server responds with an error or BAD then the email if gray-listed or blocked.

• Displays a nice splash page
• Displays a license agreement with a checkbox for confirmation
• Checks for minimum OS version and .Net 2 Fx
• Lets the user choose a Typical, Custom or Complete install.  Under custom they can choose Client and/or server components and specify directories for each.
• Prompts the user to enter config parameters for the client and server and updates the corresponding exe.config and web.config files
• If the server components are installed it creates a virtual directory in IIS

• Use the v 2 latest revision.  I used 2.0.4103.0.  Get the source code and binaries - you'll need the source to create custom dialogs.
• Use the Tutorial.  It's a bit vague in places but just hack something together and you can usually figure out the options.
• Google 'wix anything' and you will find an answer quickly.
• Join the wix-user mail list.  The chaps there are very helpful and friendly.
• Creating a custom dialog is a piece of cake if you follow the tutorial but a GUI tool to create the dialog layouts would be nice.  Maybe there is one ?
• There is a Visual Studio addin for Wix projects but I had problems with this - maybe my fault - so I just used the tried and true command line method and Visual Studio to edit the raw wxs files.  You should add the provided schemas to your VS schema directory and create a CMD or BAT file to compile and link your MSI.
• Updating config / xml files from Wix is easy but you have to escape the xpath expression correctly, e.g.: 

  ElementPath="/configuration/applicationSettings/Airways.SUMS.Properties.Settings/setting[\[]@name='FirstDayOfWeek'[\]]/value"

•  The syntax can be a little wordy in places but in general it all makes sense.  A ComboBox control in a custom dialog looks like this:

  <Control Id="FirstDay" Type="ComboBox" X="115" Y="70" Width="190" Height="15" TabSkip="no" Property="CC FIRSTDAYOFWEEK" ComboList="yes" Sorted="yes">
   <ComboBox Property="CC FIRSTDAYOFWEEK">
    <ListItem Text="Sunday" Value="0" />
    <ListItem Text="Monday" Value="1" />
    <ListItem Text="Tuesday" Value="2" />
    <ListItem Text="Wednesday" Value="3" />
    <ListItem Text="Thursday" Value="4" />
    <ListItem Text="Friday" Value="5" />
    <ListItem Text="Saturday" Value="6" />
   </ComboBox>
  </Control>

• You can edit the supplied Bitmaps to include your product or company logo.  In fact you can customise everything.

1. Download and install the DNN 4 Starter Kit.
2. Create a VB Web Site project in VS05 (Express or other) and select the DNN Project.
3. You MUST specify and HTTP web site - don't use FILE - Cassini is not up to it.
4. Add the new database.mdf to the App Data directory (or create on elsewhere and change the config files connection string).
5. Give Network Service or ASPNET Modify rights on the new web site folder.
6. Rename release.config to web.config.
7. Run

• Don't create modules in C#.  You are supposed to be able to and I did manage to create one once, but the 2nd time around it gave me all sort of stupid errors.  Just accept that DNN is VB and your modules should also be VB.  (It's not that bad really :)
• Use SQL Express if you can.  The integration with VS05 is fantastic.
• Make sure you have a decent machine to develop on.  My notebook is a 3 gig P4 but it only have 500mb RAM and VS05 grinds like a meat mincer full of concrete.

Rod just blogged that ERWin was recently (?) purchased by CA.  What a shame!  I never actually used ERWin in anger - I'm a code first, diagram later kind of guy - but it looked good. 

Does anyone remember Nantucket Clipper?  In the late 80's and early 90's it was THE database development language for DOS (a lot of FoxPro users may be laughing about now).  Nantucket created some wonderous stuff that we have only recently seen in Windows tools - things like code blocks,eg:

    LOCAL block := {|var1, var2| DoSomething(var1, var2) }
    LOCAL res
    res := ExecThing(block)

    ? res

    FUNCTION ExecThing(block)
      LOCAL v1 := 1, v2 := 2
      return eval(block, v1,v2)

    FUNCTION DoSomething(x,y)
      return x + y

It also included the best preprocessor I have ever seen, you could create user define statements to the extent that you could create your own language.  Very cool and very dnagerous.  I once heard someone describe Clipper 87 as a tool that let you shoot yourself in the foot and Clipper 5 as a tool that would let you shoot yourself in any part of the body you wanted. 

Anyway, Clipper still lives on - I have one customer that I still support with 12 year old code.

But I digress.  CA purchased Nantucket not long before they were due to release the long awaited Windows version of Clipper.  And that was about it.  CA did ship Visual Objects and a small upgrade for Clipper 5 but essentially CA killed it. 

So, if you like ERWin, then be warned.