Category: Information – Products

With Visual Installer you can set initial settings for your application in different ways. One simple method is to store the settings in an INI file. INI files have existed since the first Windows version, and are still used today because they are simple to use and support all basic features for storage of settings that are needed.

In Visual Installer’s editor there is a dedicated tab that is used to handle data to INI files. The name of the tab is “INI files” and in the tab there are four buttons:

New file : Creates a new file.
Add section : Adds a section to the INI file.
Add value : Adds a value name and a value (for example a text string) to the INI file.
Variables : Shows a list of variables that can be inserted in the INI file.

To add/create a new INI file in your Visual Installer project, follow the steps below:

Step by step – How to add/create an INI file in your Visual Installer project

1. Open the “INI files” tab in Visual Installer’s editor.
2. Click the New file button in the “INI files” tab. The button is located in the bottom left.

3. Enter the filename of the INI file in the dialog box that is shown. E.g., “MySettings.ini“.

4. Click OK.
5. A message box with a question is now shown, with the following text:
“Do you want the INI file to be created in the main destination folder of the installation?”
6. Answer Yes.
7. Now click the Add section button in the “INI files” tab.
8. Enter a section name. For example: “Directories“.

9. Click OK.
10. Now click the Add value button in the “INI files” tab.
11. Enter a value name and a value in the dialog box that is shown. For example:

12. Click OK.
13. The result, that is shown in the “INI files” tab, will look something like this:

You have now created an INI file with some contents for your installation project. The INI file will be created in the main destination folder during the installation and the variables used in the INI file will be replaced with actual values when the INI file is created.

%DESTDIR that is used above is a variable that will be replaced with the installation’s main destination folder path during the installation. You can read more about %DESTDIR here.

You can open different kinds of document types from buttons in menu interfaces created with the CD-Menu Creator and USB Menu Creator tools. One document type that can be opened are Excel documents, and if you choose the menu command Open Excel File (see the picture below) you will get access to some special functionality that can be useful when handling Excel files. You can for example send command line parameters (switches) to Excel.

With the Open Excel File command you can open the following types of Excel files: .XLS, .XLSX, .XLTX, .XLSM, and .XLTM.

By entering command line switches in the Parameters text box in CD-Menu Creator / USB Menu Creator, you can control how Excel files are opened in Microsoft Excel. For example, if you enter /r in the Parameters text box, the Excel file is opened in read-only mode.

Read more about available command line switches for Excel here:

> Command-line switches for Excel (opens a page on Microsoft’s website)

See also
> How to open a PDF document from a menu
> CD-Menu Creator’s button commands explained