what is the best way to update WPF application? I use WiX as an installer, so how can I alert users of a newer version of my program? I think ClickOnce can't be used in combination with WiX installer.
Related
I'm trying to automate an application I developed in C# (WPF) using Robot Framework.
I already explored a bunch of alternatives:
White Library
https://github.com/Omenia/robotframework-whitelibrary
https://github.com/TestStack/White
Doesn't seem to be working.
AutoItLibrary:
https://pypi.org/project/robotframework-autoitlibrary/
https://github.com/HW71/AutoItLibrary
https://github.com/qitaos/robotframework-autoitlibrary
Doesn't work for WPF C# applications - Doesn't detect components
Sikuli
https://github.com/rainmanwy/robotframework-SikuliLibrary
http://rainmanwy.github.io/robotframework-SikuliLibrary/
Image detection doesn't work very well in WPF C# applications.
Has anyone been able to automate WPF C# applications using Robot Framework IDE?
Regards
We just released first stable version of WhiteLibrary. It should do the job.
https://github.com/Omenia/robotframework-whitelibrary
pip install --upgrade robotframework-whitelibrary
Unfortunately, WhiteLibrary is build on the White automation framework which has been deprecated since December 11, 2019. While WhiteLibrary itself is not officially deprecated, the last release is also from 2019.
There appears to be a newer framework called FlaUI, which is wrapped by RobotFramework-FlaUI. This project is still under active development currently and likely a more future-proof choice than WhiteLibrary.
Is there any alternative way to create setup for my WPF application?
The build in setup creator of MS has same issues with Install/UnInstall.
There is WiX toolset http://wix.codeplex.com/ as well as InstallShield http://www.flexerasoftware.com/products/installshield.htm
MSDN does not list a WPF .exe as a supported type of application for ClickOnce
A ClickOnce application is any Windows Presentation Foundation
(.xbap), Windows Forms (.exe), console application (.exe), or Office
solution (.dll) published using ClickOnce technology.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d.aspx
I do find evidence around the web that non-XBAP WPF apps work with ClickOnce, but are they officially supported?
Yes, ClickOnce does support WPF applications compiled to executables. ClickOnce is nothing more than an installation distribution method. The primary difference between creating an installation package and ClickOnce (other than being web-based) is that ClickOnce applications are installed within obfuscated folders within the end user's Windows directory.
The means that ClickOnce applications can be installed with a non-administrator account. The caveat to this method is that an application can not be installed on a PC and shared across other user accounts on the PC-- each user must re-install the application.
WPF requires the .NET 3.0+ framework. When you publish your ClickOnce application, you will need to include the .NET 3.0 (or 4.0) framework. Once you add the prerequisite to your project, ClickOnce will check the user's PC to see if the framework is installed. If not, it will pre-install it before installing and running your application. If it already exists, it will skip the download and installation of the framework.
If you need to install a third-party library or application, custom pre-requisites can be created and added to your projects. It is worth noting, prerequisites may need to be installed by an administrator, depending on the rights of the end user. This may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but it's just the nature of the installation process.
ClickOnce is a very simple, but robust installation mechanism, and I've used it extensively. It's not appropriate for every circumstance, but it can certainly accomplish what you are asking.
For ClickOnce, there is no difference between a Windows Forms executable and a WPF executable. Both are .NET executables and as such fully supported by ClickOnce...
I have personally deployed several WPF desktop applications using ClickOnce, and it worked exactly the same as with my Windows Forms applications...
I want to pack my file in to a single executable file "setup.exe", my application is written in c# and WPF, I know that there are a lot of applications out in the store for creating a installation pack, but the point is which one would help me to build my installation pack just like Devexpress dose ?
For an UI similar to DevExpress you will need a setup authoring tool which offers an external UI and rich graphics.
Advanced Installer and InstallShield have some great UI themes which can get you started. You can also find a list of setup tools here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software
You'll probably have to roll a custom solution for this one. I expect nothing less of the Devexpress team then creating their own installer.
If you're application is not heavily bound into the registry and all kind of windows folders it should not be that hard to create an application that extracts some files into a directory and create some great UI while copying.
I have a WPF C# desktop application that will need to be deployed as MSI (Windows Installer deployment, not ClickOnce deployment) in VS2010. My application will generate SQL CE database in run-time, manipulate Excel Workbook, and receive/transmit data from/to COM Port - so I don't know what is the appropriate way to deploy such an application.
I am looking at Windows Installer Deployment Tasks which doesn't help me to get started.
Could anyone show me some resources that give instructions on how to deploy an application as an MSI installer?
If you don't want ClickOnce, then you'll probably need to create your own MSI. In that case, you can use:
The built-in Setup project type in Visual Studio. It does a decent job but has limitations. Works very well if you don't have many dependencies or custom actions.
A commercial tool like InstallShield
WIX (Windows Installer XML)
I've tried both 1 and 3. While WIX has a little bit of a learning curve, it is a very rich way to do what you want to do. There is a fair bit of documentation available and some very nice "out of the box" wizard sequences to handle your standard install scenarios (licenses, feature selection, dependencies, etc). WIX does have some VS integration that works quite well.
You can find out more on WIX at http://wix.sourceforge.net/
Note:
The VS setup project can do custom actions, and install dependencies, but you have to use custom actions. If you want to parameterize the custom actions, then you'll need to find the not-so-intuitive instructions on that topic.
The other limitation of the VS setup project is that the setup project can only be compiled to an MSI by VS (devenv.exe). That means that the MSI cannot be compiled on a build server unless you install Visual Studio there too. This was a show stopper for me, so I switched to WIX and was very happy with the result.
For those like me who found this post after searching high and low for how to deploy an MSI these days, you now need an extension as the visual studio team removed the built in startup project functionality. You now need to download the Visual Studio Installer Projects extension.
See this user voice post for discussion of the removal, and here is a link to the extension.
Useful for people looking for a quick solution to generating an MSI through Visual Studio rather than getting deep into Wix (although if you need more advanced deployment options, definitely go that route).
Configure your WPF application to publish as a ClickOnce application. You can do that in the 'Publish' tab of the project properties.
If you use the 'Publish Wizard' (by clicking on the aptly named button on the properties page) you can specify (on the second page) that the user will install 'From a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM'. This option will produce a setup.exe file in the publish sub-folder of your project output directory. This setup.exe program when launched by your user will install the WPF application. You may choose to include an update functionality (but you don't have to).
The ClickOnce settings also allow you to include additional files (e.g., your SQL CE database file) and pre-requisites if necessary.