Modern UI

Note: this page is a "stub" - feel free to change/improve it

Introduction

The Modern UI is a user interface that makes NSIS look like wizards from recent versions of Windows. The Modern UI was the first such enhancement for NSIS, as it was first released to the public in 2002.

The Modern UI makes use of new features in NSIS 2.0 that allow changing the dialog resource file, "skinning" specific dialog controls, and manipulating various window features via the SendMessage command.

History

When it was first released in 2002, the Modern UI was difficult to implement because it required lots of code in the main script in order to work. Gradually it improved, and now it only requires 3 lines of code to do what 30 lines did in previous versions, thanks to a much-improved default system and lots of improvements to NSIS.

For a long while the Modern UI had no competition; as long as it looked nice, people used it. In December 2004, the ExperienceUI was released. The ExperienceUI looked like the more recent InstallShield(r) installers, and it provided a few new features and more pages. Shortly thereafter, the UltraModern UI and the InstallSpider UI appeared, each with their own differences from the Modern UI.

Obtaining the Modern UI

The Modern UI is included with all releases of NSIS starting with version 2.0 alpha 4*. To use the Modern UI, see the documentation page.

Notes

*I think this is correct but I'm not 100% sure

Ironically, this article was written by the lead developer of the ExperienceUI.

--Dandaman32 11:31, 3 January 2006 (PST)

Light Modifications to Code

There are some light third party changes to code to implement extra to or improve some features of Modern UI. These changes are not directly mergable - you need to merge them manually. Also, these are not supported by the authors of Modern UI in any way as those are not related to them, and are not in any way the original version that comes with NSIS. Some of them are the following (search NSIS Forums for more):

Modern UI 2.12 - Added MUI_WELCOMEPAGE_LINK define - add feature to have a link in the Welcome page:

Nsis-2.12 mui-1.74 nicode.zip (8 KB)