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Action Registration

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Visual Build Pro custom and user actions (their UI and action components) can be registered in one of three ways:

 

1) An action's registration can be stored under the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Kinook Software\Visual Build Professional 6\Actions.  The COM Register action can be used to register user .action files in this manner.  This registration takes precedence over methods #2 and #3 below for actions with the same name.  The following manual changes can be made to these registry settings for the built-in actions:

 

The DefaultProperty value can be modified to change the data displayed in the Step Panes Default Property column (and logged if the Log default property of each step checkbox is enabled in the logging options dialog) for a given action.  To see the available property names for an action, print or preview the project (ensure that the extended properties option is checked in the print options dialog) or open a .bld file in a text editor and view the element names of a step for that action.
The Category value can be modified to change the category an action is displayed under in the Actions pane.
An action's key can be deleted to remove the action from the Actions pane.  Custom properties for deleted action steps in existing projects can't be edited, and they will fail to build.

 

2) Any .action files found in the Actions path in the Visual Build Pro installation directory will be loaded on startup (this is where VBP's .action files are installed).  .action files can be deleted from this path to remove them from the Actions pane.

 

Note: any changes made to the built-in .action files in this location will be overwritten if Visual Build Pro is reinstalled.  To restore the original settings for the built-in actions, reinstall Visual Build Professional.

 

3) Any .action files found in the application data path will be loaded on startup.  Action files in this directory take precedence over action files in the Actions path in #2 for action files with the same name. 

 

Notes:

To copy a .action file to the default application data path from Windows Explorer, right-click on the .action file and choose Install from the context menu.
To update the GUI to reflect any registration changes made via the COM Register action or copying/deleting .action files to/in the application data path, select View | Refresh on the menu bar (F5).