Summary

Synopsis

Discussion

A. Call the Windows API, ShellExecute, to open the HTML page. Below is a sample script that launches a file called iftw.htm from a local drive. To use this example, make a file called iftw.htm and put it in your C:\Windows\Temp directory. Place the following code in setup.rul. You can then call LaunchHTML in the OnFirstUIAfter event, for example, to launch your HTML file.

#define DLL_FILE "Shell32.DLL"
// Prototype ShellExecute in Shell32.DLL
  prototype Shell32.ShellExecuteA(HWND, LPSTR, LPSTR, LPSTR, LPSTR, INT);

//prototype LaunchHTML function
  prototype LaunchHTML();

//LaunchHTML() function
  function LaunchHTML()
    NUMBER nHwndFlag, nResult;
    HWND hInstallHwnd;
    STRING szOperation, szFile, szPath, szDLL, szParameter;
    POINTER pszOperation, pszFile, pszPath, pszParameter;
     begin
       nHwndFlag = HWND_INSTALL;
  
//GetWindowHandle retrieves the handle of the installation main window
       hInstallHwnd = GetWindowHandle(nHwndFlag);
 
//Load shell32.DLL into memory
       szDLL = DLL_FILE;
       nResult = UseDLL(szDLL);
       if (nResult != 0) then
         MessageBox("UseDLL failed.\n\nCouldn't load .DLL file.", INFORMATION);
         abort;
       endif;
       szOperation="OPEN";
       pszOperation=&szOperation;
       szFile="iftw.htm";
       pszFile=&szFile;
       szPath="C:\\Windows\\Temp";
       pszPath=&szPath;
       szParameter="";
       pszParameter=&szParameter;
  
//The following removes the Shell32.dll from memory

     ShellExecuteA(hInstallHwnd, pszOperation, pszFile, pszParameter, pszPath, SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED);
     if (UnUseDLL (szDLL) < 0) then
      MessageBox("UnUseDLL failed.\n\nDLL still in memory.", SEVERE);
     endif;
end;

B. The following example script launches the default browser and goes to InstallShield's home page. This script determines if a Web browser is available on the end user's system and then looks in the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm and obtains the default value for this key.

Then, the path to the browser executable is retrieved. The InstallScript function LaunchAppAndWait is called to launch this executable, passing the name of the HTML file as the command-line parameter. Place the following code in setup.rul. You can then call LaunchBrowser, for example, in the OnFirstUIAfter event to launch your HTML file.

//prototype LaunchBrowser function
prototype LaunchBrowser();
/
/LaunchBrowser() function
function LaunchBrowser()
STRING szSite, szKey, szDir;
STRING svValue, svReturnString1, svReturnString2;
NUMBER nvType, nvSize;
begin
  szSite="http://www.installshield.com/";

  //Find the value in the registry under "HKey_Classes_Root\.htm" file
  //to see where the browser address is kept.

RegDBSetDefaultRoot(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT);

RegDBGetKeyValueEx(".htm", "", nvType, svValue, nvSize);

//Append the return value to Shell\open\command
//to get the path to executable of the browser

szKey = svValue+"\\shell\\open\\command";
RegDBGetKeyValueEx(szKey, "", nvType, svValue, nvSize);
//Because the value in the command usually has %1 or other placeholders,
//we parse the path to get the directory first and then the file name
//(this way all the characters after the file name including the placeholder are removed)
ParsePath(svReturnString1, svValue, PATH);
ParsePath(svReturnString2, svValue, FILENAME_ONLY);
//Now append the .exe extension to the file name.
//If the browser is IE, the path contains an extra quote("").
//By removing the placeholder, we also removed the ending close quote("),
//but it still has the beginning opening quote ("),
//so you have to put and ending quote (" to make if a correct path.
//Netscape does not have the extra "" in the path.
szDir=svReturnString1^svReturnString2+".exe";
if ( svReturnString2 = "iexplore" ) then

szDir=svReturnString1^svReturnString2+".exe\"";
endif;
//Now the path to the browser is available.
//You can launch the browser and pass your .htm file as a parameter to it.
LaunchAppAndWait(szDir, szSite, NOWAIT);
end;