The following project types support DIM references: Basic MSI, Merge Module, and Web.

The InstallShield Collaboration solution is an alternative to the traditional model of installation authoring in which a single release engineer creates an installation for an entire team of software developers. In the traditional model, the burden is on the release engineer to understand the requirements for the overall installation architecture and user experience. However, the release engineer must rely on each developer to provide the installation requirements of the developer's software module after the design phase.

Collaboration enables software developers to contribute at an earlier stage of the installation process. Now, developers can communicate installation requirements in an XML-structured file that is authored and maintained alongside other source code that makes up a software module. These files are Developer Installation Manifest files (.dim), and they can be authored using InstallShield Collaboration, a tool that is available for Visual Studio development environments, or InstallAnywhere Collaboration, a tool that is available for Eclipse development environments. Both tools enables a developer to create or edit a .dim file in the built-in editor. The software developer can also edit a .dim file using a third-party XML editor and Notepad. Once the developer creates a .dim file, then you, the release engineer, can reference it in an installation and wrap the package with a chosen installer technology at build time.

Within InstallShield, you can use the DIM References view to manage all .dim file references. DIM references are a grouping of similar application data—items such as files, shortcuts, and registry entries—organized from the developer's perspective. Your users will never see DIM references during the installation; the data will be set up on their systems depending on which features are selected for installation.

## Adding DIM References

DIM references enable you to organize your application data into similar groups. Unlike features, they constitute the developer's view of a project—items such as files, shortcuts, and registry entries. DIM references are associated with features in Basic MSI projects, and a DIM reference can belong to more than one feature. You can add DIM references to a merge module project. When the merge module is consumed in an installation project, the merge module's DIM references are associated with the feature that contains the merge module.

To add a DIM reference:

Right-click the DIM References explorer, and then click New DIM Reference.

A DIM reference name must contain only letters, digits, underscores (_), and periods (.), and must begin with a letter or an underscore. It cannot contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " ' < > |

In Basic MSI projects, DIM references that are not associated with a feature are displayed with the orphaned DIM reference icon ().

## Understanding the Difference Between the DIM References View and the Setup Design View in Basic MSI Projects

Although the DIM References view appears to be an exact subset of the Setup Design view in Basic MSI projects, and, in fact, you can create and modify DIM references in precisely the same way in both views, there is one major difference between them. The Setup Design view is different because it enables you to associate DIM references with features.