Designing Objects
InstallShield 2025
Project:
The design of your object—how components and file groups are arranged—accompanied by the actual content of the object, is the single biggest hurdle you need to clear in order to have a stable, usable object.
Several key areas are involved in designing an object. Each is described below.
Object Project Settings
Another difference between standard installation projects and objects lies in the project settings. Tabs for object creation are available on the Project Settings dialog box. On these tabs, you can define the language the object was developed in, the display name of the object, and the icon and help topic associated with the object. You can also can choose the kind of wizard interface, if any, that you would like to provide with your object.
For more information, see Designing an Object’s Wizard.
Managing Components
It is important that you take the time to properly divide your project into features. When designing your features, you need to plan for scenarios such as localization and conditional selection of features. For more information, see Designing Features for Objects.
Properties and Methods
Properties and Methods allow your users to interact with your object both during design time and run time. For more information, see Creating a Property and Creating a Method.
Creating a Design-Time Wizard
If you include any properties in your object, it is a good idea to provide a graphical interface so that users of your object can easily set those properties according to their needs. For more information, see Designing an Object’s Wizard.
Creating the Runtime User Interface
Your object can display dialogs to the end users of installations that include the object. For information on creating a run-time user interface for your object and calling that interface from an installation that includes the object, see Creating the Object’s Run-Time User Interface.
Localizing Your Object’s Design Environment
The InstallShield interface is localized into English and Japanese. If you would like your object to be localized to these languages, see Localizing an Object’s Design-Time Environment for more information.
Internationalizing Your Object’s Run-Time Experience
If your application is designed to run in multiple languages, you will need to prepare an internationalized object. Installing language-specific files with an object differs slightly from standard installations. For more information, see Preparing an Object for Internationalization.
Making Your Object Compatible with Installations During Run Time
Your object should support all the operating systems and languages that are supported by any installation that includes the object. For more information, see Making Your Object Compatible with Installations During Run Time.