How to reuse custom action in different installers

[JohnRocha]

How do reuse my custom actions in different installers?

We use install builder for our various products.

I use the <actionDefinition> to create some of my own actions.

I would like those custom actions to be available to all of my install builder instances.

How would I do this?

I see a way to share components using the <include> directive. How could I do this for the custom actions?

[michieldhont_]

Hi @JohnRocha,

You can add an <include> tag inside any list, so also inside the <functionDefinitionList>. You can find more information about it here:

https://clients.bitrock.com/installbuilder/docs/installbuilder-userguide.html#adding_components_from...

If you plan to use more custom actions I recommend using a component that contains all the actions, and include it as a "library" component inside all your installers.

Best regards,

Michiel

[JohnRocha]

Hello @michieldhont_ ,

Thank you for the suggestion.

How does placing the custom actions in a component work?

Looking at the documentation, I see that

1. <actionDefinition> can only be a child of <functionDefinitionList>
2. <functionDefinitionList> an only be a child of <project>

How would I create component that provides a <functionDefinitionList>?

I understand that I could crate separate files for each <actionDefintion> and then pull those into the <functionDefinitionList> but that really doesn't scale well since we have several functions that we want to re-use.

[michieldhont_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @JohnRocha,

Since you have several functions you can create a single component, for example:

<component name="functions">
  ...
 <functionDefinitionList>
  <actionDefinition name"action1">
     ...
  </actionDefinition>
  <actionDefinition name"action2">
     ...
  </actionDefinition>

 </functionDefinitionList>
 ...
<component>

You can then include the functions component as follows:

<project>
 ...
<componentList>
    <include file="functions.xml" />
</componentList>
 ...
</project>

Best regards,

Michiel