Screen Flicker during ScreenCondition checks

[imanta]

During installation, I want to do some checks prior to any screens loading and show the appropriate Screen based on a Condition.

For example:
- If %IsWinNT3%=True AND %IsWinNT4%=True AND %IsWin2000%=True AND %IsWinXP%=True AND %IsUserNTAdmin%=False then show Administrator Failure screen
- If %CustomVariable% = True Then show Already Installed screen
- If not, then Continue to Welcome screen

Currently I have these implemented as Screen Conditions but this produces a flicker as the Admin screen loads, checks, fails condition, continues, etc. While it functionally works it just looks bad.

Where else could I do this?

Thanks.

[Darryl]

What build of the product are you using?

Are you launching any actions from any of the actions tabs?

The screen you may be referring to is the Action Progress screen which displays if any actions are performed during the install. They are needed if you have long action lists in which nothing would be displayed to the user.

However there is a built-in variable to disable this screen which is defined as follows:

%ShowActionProgressDlg%
This variable controls whether or not the Action Progress dialog is visible. If this variable is set to TRUE, the Action Progress dialog will be visible. If it's set to FALSE, the Action Progress dialog won't be visible.

Note: This variable has no affect during the uninstall.

However this variable must be set at runtime which would result in the dialog being displayed, so technically it must be displayed at least once in order to modify it's value from it's default value.

[imanta]

We are using build 6.0.1.2

We have one startup action that reads a registry value and assigns it to a custom variable. This is used immediately to check configuration of our software.

I have not seen %ShowActionProgressDlg% anywhere. Where and how do I set this?

Thanks.

[Darryl]

The %ShowActionProgressDlg% variable is a built-in variable present in the documentation with the other variables, however it's definition is what I copied in my previous post. You would have to use an Assign Value action to set it to FALSE for it to affect all action dialogs further along in the install. As I mentioned, since this must be set by an action at runtime, there is currenlty no way to remove that initial display of the action dialog in order to set it. It will not affect the action dialog that it is present on, just dialogs displayed further in the install.

I cannot really see a way around this fact since it is a runtime variable. The ideal solution is to have it defined at design time, however that is currently not possible. However it's currently entered as a suggestion.

[DanCooperstock]

I have set the %ShowActionProgressDlg% to FALSE in my Startup actions section. However, I'm still getting a lot of flashing between screens.

Is there some un-obvious trick to using this?

[Darryl]

No, there is no trick. You will receive a flash from the dialog that the action is placed on, however it suppress ones further in the install.

Use a Show Message Box action to display that variables contents to see what they are. It could be that you are assigning the value incorrectly.

[DanCooperstock]

When I examined it, it was TRUE, so clearly my assignment wasn't working.

After messing around a bit, it turned out that the problem was that when I was assigning FALSE to %ShowActionProgressDlg%, there was a space after %ShowActionProgressDlg%! It was including that space in the variable name.

I'm sorry, but I think that's really sad. I asked (and had answered) another question about variable names, and it seems that anything (with or without percent signs) can be a variable name. I really think you should be more strict, so that this sort of stupid (and extremely hard to find) mistake can't happen

[Corey]

You're right on this one. In AutoPlay Media Studio if you try to assign a value to a variable and there is a space before or after a percentage sign it errors right away so you know... Good point. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[DanCooperstock]

Well ... most products protect you from typos like that. They don't allow spaces in variable names, they have strict rules about variable names, they ignore whitespace ...

This is not to say I don't think SF is a very good product. I like it a lot. But when you "simplify" things by not using a real programming language with free-form scripts, it's painful if that also makes things more complex because you don't have the sort of compile-time checking that a real programming language has.

[Corey]

Yeah like I said, AutoPlay Media Studio doesn't allow you to enter invalid variable names, so I suspect they will fix this at some point. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Thanks for pointing it out.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[iptheron]

I know this is a late posting, but it is the last I could find on the subject.

There is another problem with using %howActionProgressDlg% and that is that it seems to make the setup application loose focus. For example, I launch the setup from some CD autorun menu. With the action progress disabled, when I write a message to the screen (from inside my setup) this is the only visible instance of my setup program. When the user close this window, the next screen appears -- behind whatever called the setup program. In my case completely hidden and for the user setup has just died.

Is there a way around this?

[Darryl]

If you are not currently, what happens if you pass the Setup Factory executable the /W command line argument? This is the "Wait for return" option.

Give that a try and see if that solves your problem.