Deploy & Install: Revit Addin Projects and Visual Studio Setup Custom Actions

As discussed earlier, it is a good practice to create a Revit Addin Manifest file dynamically, fill in the assembly path properly, and deploy the file to the desired roaming folder correctly in an installer rather than packaging a static manifest file with everything hard coded. Otherwise, it will lose all flexibilities and users cannot even change the installation folder which the addin assembly in the manifest depends on.

Creating an Installer derivative and adding a custom action into the setup project to do the above apparently is a good and relatively cost effective approach. Some questions may come to mind then.

The first: What is a Custom Installer?
Please consult MSDN documentations like:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.configuration.install.installer.aspx

The second: What are Custom Actions?
Please consult MSDN documentations like:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bd8h80ez(v=vs.80).aspx

The third: How to create a Custom Action?
Please consult MSDN documentations like:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d9k65z2d(v=vs.80).aspx

The next and most important one: Where to put the Custom Installer?

At first thought, most people would try to put the installer class into the Revit Addin project itself, but a vague error message would always show up saying:

The message was not so helpful for trouble shooting the problem and no matter what were tried the same message kept coming up during installations.

After another separate project being created and the installer class being moved into it, everything became fine.

So it is not good at all to put the custom installer classes into the Revit Addin project itself. Instead, please create another separate simple class library project with only default references and define the custom installers there.

Last but not least: Is there an example of deploying a manifest file in an installer with custom actions?
Sure. It will be provided in the coming post.

Revit Manifest Register of RevitAddinWizard helps create an installer custom action project flexibly in no time. The action will automatically create a manifest file, append proper path to the specified assembly, and deploy the file to the right Revit Addin roaming folder during installations.

Deploy & Install: Revit Application Addin Manifest

Deploy & Install: Revit Command Addin Manifest

Deploy & Install: Revit Addin Roaming Folders

Deploy & Install: The Registry of Revit 2011

Deploy & Install: The Registry of Revit 2012

Deploy & Install: Where Are Revit Products Installed

Deploy & Install: Manifest Navigator of RevitAddinWidget

Deploy & Install: RegEdit Launcher of RevitAddinWidget

Deploy & Install: Revit Locator of RevitAddinWidget

Deploy & Install: Manifest Encoding

Deploy & Install: Manifest Loading

Deploy & Install: Manifest ClientId