Project item commands

The project item commands appear on a variety of context menus Context menu icon that are associated with the items in an InstallMate project (see Menus and toolbars). They contain commands that create and manipulate project items and are listed here in alphabetical order.

Note: Many of the commands on context menus are generic commands that also appear on the main menu bar. These commands are documented in the following topics: File Edit View Format Project Help

Command Description
(no commands) This placeholder appears if a project item does not have any commands of its own.
Add Component... Displays the Select Component dialog box that allows you to select a component from the project. A link to this component is then added to the feature.
Add Files From Disk... Displays the Add Files to Project dialog box that allows you to select one or more files from disk, or add them using a filter. After selecting the files, the Bulk Import dialog appears so you can assign the new files to one or more components.
Add Object...

Displays the Select Installation Object dialog box that allows you to select an installation object from the project. A link to this object is then added to the component. If the object was previously associated with a different component, it is removed from the old component.

Note: This command has the same effect as the Assign to Component... command; that command operates from the object's perspective, whereas this command does so from the component's.

Add Side-by-side Assembly... Displays a standard Windows Open dialog box that lets you select the .manifest file of a Windows side-by-side assembly, then creates an assembly from this .manifest file, and adds the .manifest file and the rest of the assembly to the asembly and the selected folder, or to the WinSxS folder if the manifest describes a shared assembly.
Assign to Component...

Displays the Select Component dialog box that allows you to select a component from the project. The selected project items are then assigned to this component.

Note: This command has the same effect as the Add Object... command; that command operates from the component's perspective, whereas Assign to Component... does so from the object's.

Build Package Checks and builds the installation package whose context menu is displayed.
Change Language

Displays the Select Installation Language dialog box that allows you to assign a different language ID to the selected language. The selected language's ID is then changed to the new language ID; the same change is made to all localized texts in the project that used the original language ID.

Note: This command is mainly useful to quickly create a new language translation based on an existing, similar language (for example, from US English to Australian English). It does not magically insert new translations for existing text; it merely assigns a different language ID to them.

  • To add a new set of translations to the project from an existing language file, use the Import Translations... command, either from the main menu or from the Languages page context menu or toolbar.
  • To add a new language without any translations, use the New Language... command. The new language will use default text strings until you translate them.
Generate Unique Alias

Generates a new, unique alias for the selected project item.

Note: Be careful with this command; if you change the alias of an object that is referenced elsewhere through a symbolic reference (for example, a file that you reference as <#file_alias>), then the reference may no longer function. However, any hard links to the object (for example, a reference from the object's component to the object) will remain intact.

Go to Alias Variable
Go to Component
Go to Linked Folder
Go to Target Object

Displays the project page on which the target of the currently selected object appears and selects that target object.

This command applies to project items that refer to other items, for example component, folders, shortcuts, components, and some action types.

Import Bitmap... Displays a standard Open dialog box that allows you to browse for a bitmap image file. After selecting the desired file, the bitmap is added to the Bitmaps page as a project resource.
Import Icon... Displays a standard Open dialog box that allows you to browse for an icon image file. After selecting the desired file, the icon is added to the Icons page as a project resource.
Import RegEdit File... Displays the standard Open dialog box that allows you to browse for a Registry export file (.reg file). This registry file is then imported into the Registry tree of the project. Both REGEDIT4 (ANSI) and RegEdit 5.00 (Unicode) files are supported.
Import RichText... Displays the standard Open dialog box that allows you to browse for a RichText (.rtf) or plain text (.txt) file. This file is then added to the RichTexts resources of the project.
Import Translations... Displays the standard Open dialog and allows you to browse for a language text (.txt) file. The translations from this file are then added to the project; if necessary, a corresponding project language is created on the Languages page.
New Item Type

Inserts a new Item Type project item into the project. There are more than 100 different project item types available, but each context menu contains only the ones that apply to the current project page or parent item.

The newly inserted project item is automatically assigned a new name; in most cases, its name is then opened in a small text field so you can rename it. If you don't want to rename it, press Esc.

New Watch List Adds a new watch list to the current folder.
Open with ShellExecute Opens the selected file with the ShellExecute API. For executable programs this starts the program; for other files types it opens the file with the application that is associated with it in the Windows shell (i.e., Windows Explorer).
Preflight Configuration Performs a preflight check on the package whose context menu is displayed.
Reload RichText Reloads the RichText object from its external file. This is useful if you have used an external RTF editor to edit the RichText and want to load the most recent version of the text.
Remove from Component Breaks the association between the selected project items and the components they were assigned to, if any.
Remove from List Removes the currently selected item(s) from the list
Remove Non-existing Removes all project entries that refer to project files that no longer exist from the MRU list
Reset Defaults Resets the installation attributes of the selected files. InstallMate automatically sets the installation attributes of a new file when you add it to the project, based on the type of file and its parent folder. If you changed the attributes for some reason, then you can use Reset Defaults to restore the originals.
Run Installer Runs the installer that was built by the package whose context menu is displayed.
Run Installer As... Similar to Run Installer , but allows you to run the test under a different user account.
Save RichText As... Displays the standard Save As dialog box that allows you to specify a file name and folder for the rich text resource. From then on, the contents of the rich text resource are stored in that file instead of in the project file itself, which makes it easy to share the same text between projects, or to edit the text with an external editor.
Set as Default Makes the selected package the default package. The name of the default package is shown in the main toolbar (see Menus and toolbars) and is the configuration that is checked, built, and tested by default.
Set as Default Language

Makes the selected language the default project language. The default project language is used when you build an installer with its Languages attribute set to Default only (see Package), and as the fallback language if no better match is available in multilingual InstallMates.

Note: This is not the same as the current UI editing language that you can choose on the main toolbar.

Set as Primary Folder

Marks the selected folder as the project's primary folder. The alias of the primary folder is stored in the PRIMARYFOLDER symbolic variable. Its main purpose is for disk space checks during installation; it is also the default installation folder of the top-level product feature (you can change this, however).

See About INSTALLDIR and PRIMARYFOLDER for more information.

Show in Windows Explorer Opens Windows Explorer and selects the current file or build target.
Source File Information Displays the Source File Properties dialog with detailed file and version information about the selected file.