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Using Action Text

InstallShield 2015

Project: This information applies to the following project types:

To keep end users informed, installations commonly display text on the progress dialog to describe the installation’s current activity. This usually accompanies the progress bar as a means of installation status. As each standard action and custom action is encountered, a message about the action is displayed on the progress dialog. This may be especially useful for actions that take a long time to execute. The same action text is also written to the installation’s log file if one is created.

An action can also send action data that needs to be processed to the Windows Installer; once the data is processed, it can be displayed on the progress dialog.

For example, when the InstallFiles action is executing, the action text “Copying new files” is displayed by default on the progress dialog. This action text is also written to the installation’s log file. If you want to provide additional detailed information about what is occurring as actions are encountered, you can add a control to the progress dialog to show action details; the control would need to subscribe to the ActionData event. For the InstallFiles action, this could include the name, directory, and size of each file as it is being installed on the target system.

Project: InstallScript MSI installations cannot display action data on the status dialog. However, the template is written to the installation’s log file.

See Also

Specifying an Action Description and a Template for Action Data

Displaying Action Descriptions on the Progress Dialog

Displaying Action Data on the Progress Dialog