WiX: Writing Your Own WiX Extension Part 1
Wix extensions are used to extend and customize what WiX builds and how it builds it. I plan on talking about the 3 most common types of extensions in this article series; ProprocessorExtension, CompilerExtension, and BinderExtension.
The first step in creating any set of extensions is to create a class that implements WixExtension. This class will be the container for all the extensions you plan on implementing.
Creating a bare-bones WixExtension
1. Create a new C# library (.dll) project named SampleWixExtension
2. Add a reference to wix.dll to your project
3. Add a using statement: using Microsoft.Tools.WindowsInstallerXml;
4. Make your SampleWixExtension class inherit from WixExtension.
public class SampleWixExtension : WixExtension {}
5. Add the AssemblyDefaultWixExtensionAttribute to your AssemblyInfo.cs.
[assembly: AssemblyDefaultWixExtension(typeof(SampleWixExtension.SampleWixExtension))]
6. Build
7. Although it wont do anything yet, you can now pass the your SampleWixExtension.dll on the command line to the candle and light with the -ext flag like this: candle Product.wxs -ext SampleWixExtension.dll
The next article in this series will explain how to add a Preprocessor extension to your WixExtension.
