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<h1>ExperienceUI for NSIS</h1>
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<b>Welcome to the ExperienceUI.</b><br>
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The ExperienceUI is a new user interface for NSIS that looks like
the latest and greatest InstallShield® setups. The ExperienceUI supports
skinning the main installer window with several new picture areas,
and it also adds a few features to NSIS.<br>
<br>
You may think that because of the graphical effects, the ExperienceUI
requires a lot more space. If you think that, you're dead wrong. A typical
InstallShield® installer requires 1.43MB. Wait...if you still believe in
floppy disks, you definitely don't use InstallShield to install your programs,
unless they're under 1KB...not likely. An ExperienceUI-based installer, with
Welcome, License, Components, Directory, Install Confirm, File Copy, and Finish
pages, uses 90.9KB of space. That's under 1/10th of an identical InstallShield®
installer, except this one is faster, smarter, and much more friendly to dial-up
users.<br>
<br>
One of the biggest features of the ExperienceUI is the information panel
on the left side of the installer window. Every version of Windows Setup since 98
has a counter on the left side of the screen that shows an estimated count of how
much time it will be until Setup completes. With the ExperienceUI, this info panel
can be blank, it can show an "estimated time remaining" window, and it can display
interactive notifications.<br>
<br>
All this can be accomplished with code that has already been written (and rewritten)
for you, so using the ExperienceUI requires very little programming experience.<br>
<br>
The ExperienceUI also resembles the Modern UI in the way of the symbol
defining method, except many of the defines are shortened, others are
eliminated, and many new ones have been added. Also, the ExperienceUI has
multi-language support that is largely based on the Modern UI's multi-language system.
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<b>Why it was created</b>
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Simply put, I created the ExperienceUI because NSIS needed a makeover. The classic NSIS look works for Winamp plugins,
but what about when you need to create an installer for your user experience-aimed firewall? The Modern UI provided many
visual enhancements for NSIS, but it was still missing something.<br>
<br>
I was upgrading the drivers for my NVIDIA video card one day, and I noticed that the installer used a fully skinned UI.
I thought to myself, "If InstallShield can look this good, NSIS can certainly look better." So, I set to work.<br>
<br>
At first, I modified the Modern UI. While this made scripts very easily portable, my new InstallShield-style user interface
seemed limited because I had started with a skinning system that did not support skinning the entire installer window.
Finally, I decided that I had to re-write NSIS's idea of skinning completely. The first few tests proved to be cool, but
there were still improvements to be made. After a lot of hard work, the InstallShield UI for NSIS (as it was called back
then) was ready for release.<br>
<br>
I posted my new UI on the forums, and within 3 hours I received replies saying, "For the design and implementation, I give
you 10/10! This is truly amazing!" (Afrow UK) There was a lot of work still to be done, but the first release had done its
job and then some.<br>
<br>
Because of copyright concerns (using "InstallShield" in the product title) I decided to rename the whole thing to the
ExperienceUI for NSIS. I named it the ExperienceUI because it aims to redefine user experience and make software
installation lose its bad reputation as slow and often unsuccessful.<br>
<br>
Today, the ExperienceUI is a complete user experience solution, with support for multiple languages and extremely easy
implementation. It includes a language selection page, native support for Saivert's WAnsis skinning plugin, and other
enhancements too numerous to name here. All that, and it's open source.<br>
<br>
For a complete list of features included with the basic ExperienceUI package,
<a href="javascript:parent.window.location='browser.htm?url=http://xpui.sourceforge.net/index.php&sec=about&return=intro.htm%23why'">click here</a>. <font size=1>(Internet connection
required)</font>
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<p class=footer>Copyright © 2004-2006 Dan Fuhry. All rights except those explicitly given in the <a href=license_agreement.htm style=color:#A0A0D0 onmouseover="this.style.color='#A0A0A0'" onmouseout="this.style.color='#A0A0D0'">license agreement</a> reserved.</p>
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