wix3.5 - Wix Interactions with Conditions, Properties & Custom Actions

Question

I am having a problem with a setting the enabled state of a button on a Dialog. The button in question is defined as:

<Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUINext)">
<Condition Action="disable">Validated = 0</Condition>
<Condition Action="enable"><![CDATA[Validated <> 0]]></Condition>
<Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return">1</Publish>
</Control>

The property Validated starts out at an initial value of 0, and as expected the next button starts out disabled.

<Property Id="Validated" Value="0"/>

The property itself is modified through a Custom Action on another button.

<Control Id="PerformValidation" Type="PushButton" X="225" Y="75" Width="50" Height="20" Text="Validate">
<Publish Event="DoAction" Value="ValidateDB">1</Publish>
</Control>

With a stripped down version of the Custom Action like:

[CustomAction]
public static ActionResult ValidateDatabase(Session session)
{
session.Log("Begin ValidateDatabase");
session["Validated"] = "1";
return ActionResult.Success;
}

The problem I face is that the Next button does not re-enable itself after the Custom Action has run. I can confirm that the CA does run, and the property is successfully set. The UI will update if I do some other action that causes it to refresh, e.g. go back a page then forward to this page again and the Next button will be enabled.

Any ideas on how to refresh a buttons state after a Custom Action?

Answer 1

http://www.mail-archive.com/wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg05097.html gives an solution to republish the properties that were changed in the custom action immediately after it.

Here is an example of how I have gotten it to work in my code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
    <Fragment>
        <Binary Id="ConnectionStringExtension.dll" SourceFile="$(var.ConnectionStringExtension.TargetDir)$(var.ConnectionStringExtension.TargetName).CA.dll" />
        <CustomAction Id="MyCustomAction" BinaryKey="ConnectionStringExtension.dll" DllEntry="VerifyConnectionString" Execute="immediate"  />

        <UI>
            <Dialog Id="ConnectionStringDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="Database Settings - [ProductName]" NoMinimize="yes">
                <Control Id="ConnectionStringLabel" Type="Text" X="45" Y="73" Width="100" Height="15" TabSkip="no" Text="&amp;Connection String:" />
                <Control Id="ConnectionStringEdit" Type="Edit" X="45" Y="95" Width="220" Height="15" Property="CONNECTION_STRING" Text="{200}" />
                <Control Id="Back" Type="PushButton" X="180" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Text="&amp;Back">
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="&amp;Next">
                    <Condition Action="enable"><![CDATA[CONNECTION_STRING <> "" AND CONNECTION_STRING_VALID = "1"]]></Condition>
                    <Condition Action="disable"><![CDATA[CONNECTION_STRING = "" OR CONNECTION_STRING_VALID = "0"]]></Condition>
                </Control>
                <Control Id="Cancel" Type="PushButton" X="304" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Cancel="yes" Text="Cancel">
                    <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="CancelDlg">1</Publish>
                </Control>
                <Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="WixUI_Bmp_Banner" />
                <Control Id="Description" Type="Text" X="25" Y="23" Width="280" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes">
                    <Text>Please enter database configuration</Text>
                </Control>
                <Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" />
                <Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="15" Y="6" Width="200" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes">
                    <Text>{WixUI_Font_Title}Database Settings</Text>
                </Control>
                <Control Id="BannerLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="44" Width="370" Height="0" />
              <Control Id="VerifyButton" Type="PushButton"  Width="56" Height="16" X="45" Y="118" Text="Verify">
                <Publish Event="DoAction" Value="MyCustomAction">1</Publish>
                <Publish Property="TEMP_VERIFIED" Value="[CONNECTION_STRING_VALID]">1</Publish>
                <Publish Property="CONNECTION_STRING_VALID" Value="[TEMP_VERIFIED]" />
              </Control>
            </Dialog>
        </UI>
    </Fragment>
</Wix>

The CustomAction sets the value of CONNECTION_STRING_VALID to either 1 or 0 depending if it is valid or not and I have defined elsewhere that by default its value is 0

<Property Id="CONNECTION_STRING_VALID" Value="0" />

Now when I click my verify button if the string is valid the next button is enabled