bVisual Blog by David Parker

Published on February 2, 2010 by David Parker

Arrays in Shapes

I was recently asked by my good friend John Marshall, the longest serving Visio MVP (see http://visio.mvps.org/ ), if I had any examples of using arrays in shapes, rather than having scores of Shape Data rows. Indeed, I have used arrays in many shapes, and used the LOOKUP() and INDEX() ShapeSheet functions to extract discreet values, but I thought I would enhance an existing shape, the Pie chart master on the Charting shapes stencil to demonstrate a technique.

In this post, the screenshots are from Visio 2010, and I have used the Link Data to Shapes feature that was introduced in Visio 2007, but a similar effect can be done using the Database Wizard which has been part of Visio since version 4.1 back in 1997.

I started a new Business Charts and Graphs diagram, and dragged a dropped a Pie chart master on to the page. This shape allows for the user to enter values for 1 to 10 pie slices by use of the right mouse menu.

[Read more…] about Arrays in Shapes

Published on January 28, 2010 by David Parker

Applying Selected DataGraphic to the Whole Document

A recent newsgroup question asked if there is a way to apply a DataGraphic to all pages in a document. Well, there is no built-in option in Visio 2007 (or Visio 2010), but it can be done with a little bit of VBA. This blog presents a macro that can be used in most cases.

The specific use case was for an Organization Chart that has many pages, and it can be really tedious to make each page active, select all the shapes, then apply a DataGraphic, so I have written a macro that allows you to apply the required DataGraphic to a single shape, then you select that shape; run the macro to apply the same DataGraphic to all shapes in the document that has a Shape Data row with the same name as the the first Shape Data row in the selected shape.

The screenshots are from the Visio 2010 Beta, but the code will work for Visio 2007 Professional edition too.

Before

Published on January 21, 2010 by David Parker

visViewer Update

Microsoft recently retired Visio Viewer 2002 and 2003, and forced a security patch of Visio Viewer 2007. This affected my free visViewer wrapper application. Therefore, I have updated my visViewer application, which you can download from http://www.bvisual.net/Products/visViewer.aspx .

And yes, I will soon be creating a 3rd edition to work with Visio Viewer 2010!

Published on December 21, 2009 by David Parker

Displaying Metric Units in US Units Floor Plans

A recent newsgroup post asked recently why the Wall shape in his floor plans continued to show feet and inches, even after he had changed the measurement units of the page to millimeters. At first, I though he must be wrong because when I created a new Metric Floor Plan, where the walls do display millimeters by default, and then I changed the measurement units to feet and inches; I saw that the display did change. Admittedly, the display is feet and decimal inches, but it changed…. Well, I couldn’t resist the challenge to find a simple solution.

Then I created a new US Units Floor Plan and observed that the shape has US Units Shape Data drop down values.

Published on November 29, 2009 by David Parker

Visio 2010 Developer References

By now, some of you will have downloaded the Visio 2010 Beta, and may even have downloaded the Visio Automation Reference and ShapeSheet Reference files. You may the, like me, wondered how to actually view the contents of these two hxs files? Well, fortunately, Stephanie Horn from the Visio team at Microsoft as able to help, so I thought that I would pass it on to you. (Remember these files are still beta, but they do contain some useful information).

Once you download and unpack the files, you will end up with two files called Visio2010AutoRef.hxs and Visio2010ShapeSheetRef.hxs. You can view them with any HxS viewer, but the download site suggests replacing the existing versions of these files and viewing them through Visio help. To do this:

1. Rename the files VISIO.DEV.HXS and VISIO.SHAPESHEET.HXS, respectively, and put them in your Office141033 directory (i.e., C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice141033).

2. Open Visio, and launched help (F1).

3. Pick “Developer Reference” or “Visio ShapeSheet Help” in the Search pull-down menu.

I suggest turning on “Show Table of Contents” using the book icon in the toolbar, so you can navigate through the help topics.

Published on November 21, 2009 by David Parker

Microsoft Visio 2010 Beta now available to the public

One of the greatest benefits of being an MVP is our chance to participate in private beta tests of the forthcoming versions of our chosen application. Well, I have been testing the new version of Visio for a while now, and blogging about parts that we have been able to talk publicly about. I think Visio 2010 is going to be a tremendous step forward for enterprises, so it feels good to announce that anyone can download the beta of Visio 2010 Premium edition now … just follow the link on this button:

For me, the highlights are:

Structured Diagramming – Containers, Lists, Connectivity API
Rules Validation – ability to use and create diagramming rules, like for BPMN and SharePoint Workflow
Visio Services – server side refreshing of data linked diagrams, SharePoint integration

There are many improvements behind the scenes to support these new features. Try it out for yourself!