[nant15]

Hello everyone,

i have found that Wihu is very useful and i'm looking for a program like this for a very loooonnnngggg time. I like the app but i hate the fact that i have to edit install.ini on my own which is just fustrating!.

So i code a quick apps to help me out, it is called WIHU Creator and i want to share with all of you. Hope that you will find it useful. And remember, it is for my personal use so that it is based on my needs - don't expect much from it (at least, just for now)

You will need .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 2 to use this app, don't worry by the word beta - it is pretty stable and fast. The app startup in just a flash, unlike .net 1.1

For the source code, i will release it when it is more tidy

Thnx BenjaminKalytta for your suggestion!

What it can do:
- Dragging and Dropping Installation Entry around, no more manual editing!
- Opening the existing .ini file, only installation entries is supported for now
- Has some pre-defined command line switch for certain installer types (that is in the msfn unattended guides)
- Automatically generate the .ini file from the selected wihu folder, to use this feature you will have to place your apps you wish to be put into the script in the same folder as wihu.exe. The program will be categorized them using the folder they reside in. Especially for .msi and .reg it will automatically select the switch for you.
Note: The command line generated will be relative path to Wihu (the %WIHU% is placed in place of absolute path)

What it don't:
- Create/Edit User entry
- Create/Edit Environment Variable
- Create/Edit the Evaluation. (those test.x)
- Make the entry selected/hidden/collapsed/locked based on evaluation (no if:true)

Change Log:

0.3.0:
- ADD: Allows discontinuation of command
- ADD: Notification of parsing error when encountered a command which specified to be a sub command of not existing command.
- FIX: Some minor UI Bugs
- IMPROVED: The program is now fully Managed by using NINI Ini parser instead of Windows API. The Ini load performance should be greatly improved as i have avoided data conversion between .NET code and Native Code.

0.2.0:
- ADD: Allows reordering of commands
- FIX: Open Existing file, working quite stable and provide notification for unsupported statements and commands
- FIX: Loading file Created with WIHU Creator no longer resulting in multiple switch being added to the command. ext_creator_originalcommand key were used to keep the original, unaltered command in the entry.

0.1.0a:
- ADD: Drag & Drop
- ADD: Open Existing file. Switch type supported by using ext_creator_switchtype key

0.1.0:
- Initial Release

Enjoy! Comment, Suggestions, Bug Reports are welcome.

Attached File(s)

•  WIHU_Creator_0.3.0.rar (89.86K)
  Number of downloads: 1546
•  preview.png (30.95K)
  Number of downloads: 828

This post has been edited by nant15: 04 August 2005 - 04:46 AM

[XPect]

Hum, sound good, I was looking for something like this for a while.
My ini file is a few hundreds line and is quite difficult to maintain right now.
I will test this tonight and let you know.

Thanks

[BenjaminKalytta]

Hi nant15,

this tool looks great. I always want to create something like this, but I had no time so far I'll try it soon. If you want I'll add this tool to my web site.

Benjamin Kalytta

[nant15]

BenjaminKalytta, on Aug 2 2005, 07:05 PM, said:

Hi nant15,

this tool looks great. I always want to create something like this, but I had no time so far I'll try it soon. If you want I'll add this tool to my web site.

Benjamin Kalytta
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thnx I would appreciate that!

[BenjaminKalytta]

It's still a bit unstable, I wasn't able to load my install.ini for example. But Im sure you'll fix this soon
I think many people here using WIHU will appreciate your tool.

Benjamin

[nant15]

BenjaminKalytta, on Aug 2 2005, 08:48 PM, said:

It's still a bit unstable, I wasn't able to load my install.ini for example. But Im sure you'll fix this soon 
I think many people here using WIHU will appreciate  your tool.

Benjamin
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Could you please send your .ini file to me? So that i can use it to help debugging my program

[XPect]

I've done a quick test yesterday, and it's a bit buggy.
I was not abble to load or to generate any ini file.
I will try it on another machine this evening and let you know the result.

Anyway I like the idea behind, just keep working on.

[BenjaminKalytta]

@nant15:

I tried the default example INI which is shipped with WIHU by default.
Some hint about loading sub commands:

You could load each command recursively, i.e. make a function which accepts the level index. Just take a look at LoadSubCommands function in my source.

Pseudocode of this idea:

LoadSubCommand(STRING SubCommand) {
    for Idx = 0 TO MAX_LEVEL
        LoadSubCommand(SubCommand + "." + STRING(Idx))
    end for
}

...whereby MAX_LEVEL could be 255 at root level for example and 64 or so for sub levels.

Another idea of course would be (which presumes that you are not using default PrivateProfileString functions) that you only load existing commands, i.e. don't try each level as above, but only load the command which exists:

Line = LoadStringLine(LineNumber);
IF (Line.Contains("command")) THEN
    DoSomething
END IF

Benjamin

This post has been edited by BenjaminKalytta: 03 August 2005 - 04:51 AM

[nant15]

Didn't load at all???

May be i would have misunderstand your format...
This creator.ini what i'm currently using to test my program, is there something wrong with it ???

I see....there is also a key without "."

and....as i said, it didn't support if:true, if:false things yet. The program didn't aware that you can put "if:true" besides 0,1 so it didn't expect that and just crash.

Attached File(s)

•  creator.ini (21.84K)
  Number of downloads: 265

This post has been edited by nant15: 04 August 2005 - 01:42 AM

[BenjaminKalytta]

Your INI file looks ok.

command without .index will be used to set default keys for a specified section or to override [section] header with a more specific one.

[Section name]
description = Just a new Section

will display "Just a new Section" instead "Section name" for example.

Some things to "if" conditions:

description.0 = Option (will be selected in Windows 2003 by default)
command.0 = cmd.exe /c @echo Option 1.1
test.0.1 = HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CurrentVersion?=5.2
test.eval.0 = 0
selected.0 = if.true
disabled.0 = if.false

Code above will evaluate the result of "test.0.1". Only if the evaluation is true, item will be selected and enabled. If the evaluation is false, item will be unselected and disabled.

Benjamin
Second use of if.true/false is in description text:

description.0 = This is if.false("not") Windows 2003

Above will Show insert the word "not" if evaluation of "test.x.y" don't return true.

[BenjaminKalytta]

Thans, Version 0.3.0 is more stable now. May be you could add some additional features like user creation interface

Benjamin

[ronin2040]

PSSST!!! youre linking to the .net SDK....unless im mistaken (quite possible), we' wouldnt need the full, 300 meg SDK...

THIS is the link to the framework...er, runtime, or whatever
only 22 megs, a tad more reasonable

This post has been edited by ronin2040: 31 August 2005 - 08:18 PM

[nant15]

ooops!

yeah you only need the 22 mb thing

[visaversa]

nant15, on Jul 31 2005, 04:32 PM, said:

Hello everyone,


What it can do:
- Dragging and Dropping Installation Entry around, no more manual editing!
- Opening the existing .ini file, only installation entries is supported for now
- Has some pre-defined command line switch for certain installer types (that is in the msfn unattended guides)
- Automatically generate the .ini file from the selected wihu folder, to use this feature you will have to place your apps you wish to be put into the script in the same folder as wihu.exe. The program will be categorized them using the folder they reside in. Especially for .msi and .reg it will automatically select the switch for you.
Note: The command line generated will be relative path to Wihu (the %WIHU% is placed in place of absolute path)

hello nant15,

It's been long time ago that i visited the forum.
Nice to see people are still having fun in creating new applictions to make life easier for creating a unattended.
I was and still am a first time user of WIHU so i was charmed by your ini file creator.

Some remarks (bugs):

1 Dragging and Dropping Installation Entry around, no more manual editing!
Not here does not work...
2 Has some pre-defined command line switch for certain installer types (that is in the msfn unattended guides)
Does not work either here, not with registry import (tested). It does not save this settings either.

3 Especially for .msi and .reg it will automatically select the switch for you.
Non of my imported programs was recognized and recieved a switch.

Some suggestion...

When saving back to ini is it not possibles not to parse lines that are not used?

example, i only need/use
description.0=DVD2One 1.5.1
command.0=%WIHU%\REG\DVD2ONE.REG
selected.0=1

but the creator parses to the ini:
description.0=DVD2One 1.5.1
command.0=%WIHU%\REG\DVD2ONE.REG
selected.0=1
hidden.0=1
collapsed.0=0
locked.0=0
disabled.0=0
group.0=0
flags.0=
workdir.0=
helptext.0=
ext_creator_switchtype.0=0
ext_creator_originalcommand.0=%WIHU%\REG\DVD2ONE.REG


Anyway, still think its a timesaver...
If you need more indepth info...just yell

congrats

visaV

This post has been edited by visaversa: 20 October 2005 - 12:27 PM

[cwtech]

Question.
Will using %WIHU% work if i plan on running WIHU from cd and copy nothing to the harddrive?
My Program files are in the same directory as WIHU.
%CDROM%\Sotware is where WIHU and Programs are.

[mastrboy]

sweet stuff

[oldo]

Just a note.. don't need the .Net developer SDK, just the .NET framework redist. available from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en