bVisual

Shape Design

Published on by

A Visio Countdown to Xmas

I presented a Visio deck of cards in a previous post ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/12/03/a-visio-deck-of-cards/ ), and now I present a real game that can be played with Visio over the holiday season. Countdown is a British TV programme with word and number puzzles. It was the first programme to be aired on Channel 4, and 70 series have been broadcast since its debut on 2 November 1982. With over 6,000 episodes, Countdown is one of the longest-running game shows in the world, along with the original French version, Des chiffres et des lettres, which has been running on French television continuously since 1965. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_%28game_show%29.

image
[Read more…] about A Visio Countdown to Xmas

Published on by

A Visio Deck of Cards

Sometimes I try ideas out in Visio without a specific goal in mind, and I have been creating a Visio deck of cards recently, so I thought I would share it. In fact, I have only created one card but it is capable of being any card in the deck by changing its shape data! I can even get a randomly generated card … all without any code except for formulas in the ShapeSheet.

Firstly, I used four icons for hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades, from my set of metro icons stencils ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/11/20/announcing-metro-icons-and-a-windows-app-tile-shape-for-visio/ ). I decided to keep the icons for the suits separate, with four per suit, but linked their visibility to a Suit Shape Data fixed list row. I also displayed the Value Shape Data as the text of each icon.

image

I added a Face Up Shape Data row so that the suit and value are hidden by the Microsoft Office logo.

[Read more…] about A Visio Deck of Cards

Published on by

Exposing the Visio Data Bars

Microsoft Visio Professional has had the ability to quickly visualize shape data with data graphics for a while now. This data can be displayed as Text, Data Bar, Icon Set or Color By Value. In an earlier article ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/08/21/using-icon-sets-shapes-to-display-shape-data-values/ ), I showed how to enable the shapes in the Icon Sets stencil to be linked to data. Well, I had a similar request recently for the Data Bar shapes. However, Microsoft did not package the Data Bar shapes into a handy stencil, so I have done this for you.

Firstly, a reminder of the thirteen built-in Data Bar shapes that are available to you when you choose to display data as a Data Graphics / Data Bar:

image

image

[Read more…] about Exposing the Visio Data Bars

Published on by

Using JavaScript to Find and Highlight Visio Shapes by Shape Data values in SharePoint Content Editor

In August, I wrote about Using JavaScript to Display Visio Shape Data and Hyperlinks in SharePoint Content Editor ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/08/16/using-javascript-to-display-visio-shape-data-and-hyperlinks-in-sharepoint-content-editor/ ), so now I have added the ability to select shapes by a property value. The main advantage of using JavaScript in the client is that there is no need to go back to the server to refresh the page.

In the following screenshot, I have used the standard web part connections between the BeSmart Ltd document library view and the Visio Web Access control in order to set the Drawing URL.

image

[Read more…] about Using JavaScript to Find and Highlight Visio Shapes by Shape Data values in SharePoint Content Editor

Published on by

Linking SQL database on Azure to Visio

Microsoft Visio has many data sources available for Link Data to Shapes, and one of those is SQL Server. Microsoft Azure is increasingly becoming a low-cost, and always available, choice for hosting all sorts of data, and applications, so I thought I would document how easy it is to setup a SQL database on Azure for use with Visio.

Creating the SQL database on Azure

First, you need register for an Azure subscription, and then create a SQL database on a server in a suitable location.

Create Azure Sql database

[Read more…] about Linking SQL database on Azure to Visio

Published on by

Union Jacked?

I am in Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, today. All talk is of the vote on Scottish independence next week … so, I thought I would make a Union Jack Visio shape that can be automatically changed, using Shape Data values, to represent the countries left in the union!

The Union Jack is comprised of the flags of England, Scotland and Ireland … sorry Wales, you are only a principality. Yes, I know that Northern Ireland is a province, but it was decided that St Patrick’s Saltire should be kept even after Eire got independence.

Note that a single country flag has an aspect ratio of 5:3, but a multi-country union flag has an aspect ratio of 2:1.

image
[Read more…] about Union Jacked?