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New WiX feature: Internet shortcuts

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A common request on wix-users is how to create shortcuts to a Web site. MSI’s Shortcut table and CreateShortcuts action don’t support targets that point to URLs like http://www.joyofsetup.com/. A shortcut’s target can point only to a feature (for advertised shortcuts) or a file or directory (for unadvertised shortcuts).

You can fake a shortcut to a URL by using the IniFile table to create a .url file. It’s a bit of a hack, given that the format of .url files isn’t explicitly documented and is therefore subject to change. (Granted, it’s not likely to change, because that would break a lot of existing applications.)

I needed URL shortcuts for Train Simulator so I wrote a custom action to create them. I then added authoring support to the WixUtilExtension compiler extension. With reviews from Heath and Peter, I checked in the work today. You’ll see it in the next weekly build of WiX v3.

The authoring is similar to, but simpler than, a standard shortcut. Here’s the attribute schema reference from WiX.chm:

<td width="54" valign="top">
  <strong>Type</strong>
</td>

<td width="260" valign="top">
  <strong>Description</strong>
</td>

<td width="80" valign="top">
  <strong>Required</strong>
</td>

<td width="59" valign="top">
  String
</td>

<td width="250" valign="top">
  Unique identifier in your installation package for this Internet shortcut.
</td>

<td width="85" valign="top">
  Yes
</td>

<td width="62" valign="top">
  String
</td>

<td width="244" valign="top">
  Identifier of the directory where the shortcut should be created.
</td>

<td width="89" valign="top">
  Yes
</td>

<td width="64" valign="top">
  String
</td>

<td width="241" valign="top">
  The name of the shortcut file, which is visible to the user. (The .lnk extension is added automatically and by default, is not shown to the user.)
</td>

<td width="91" valign="top">
  Yes
</td>

<td width="65" valign="top">
  String
</td>

<td width="239" valign="top">
  URL that should be opened when the user selects the shortcut. Windows opens the URL in the appropriate handler for the protocol specified in the URL. Note that this is a formatted field, so you can use [#fileId] syntax to refer to a file being installed (using the file: protocol).
</td>

<td width="95" valign="top">
  Yes
</td>

Here’s what a simple http shortcut looks like:

<util:InternetShortcut
  Id="Home"
  Directory="DesktopFolder"
  Name="Joy of Setup"
  Target="http://joyofsetup.com" />

You can also create shortcuts to resources using non-http protocols:

<util:InternetShortcut
  Id="ARP"
  Directory="ProgramMenuFolder"
  Name="ARP"
  Target="file://[%WINDIR]\Help\addremov.chm" />

Internet shortcuts are needed, among other reasons, for Vista’s Game Explorer. More on that in a future entry.