Shape Design

Published on August 31, 2008 by David Parker

Updating Visio SharePoint Hyperlinks in Code

In last month’s entry, I showed how you can connect Visio timelines to SharePoint calendars, but I was unable to provide VBA code for automatically update the hyperlinks because my laptop had some issues. Well, a month later, after a holiday and a back injury, I have provided some VBA code below that enables the hyperlinks to become usable with the SharePoint calendar used in the example.

Public Sub AmendLinks()

Const urlCell As String = “_VisDM_Encoded_Absolute_URL”
Const idProp As String = “Prop._VisDM_ID”

    Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Dim pag As Visio.Page
    Dim i As Integer
Dim urlOld As String
Dim id As String
    Dim urlNew As String

    For Each pag In Visio.ActiveDocument.Pages
         For Each shp In pag.Shapes
             If shp.CellExistsU(“Prop.” & urlCell, Visio.visExistsAnywhere) _
                 And shp.CellExistsU(idProp, Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then
                 urlOld = shp.Cells(“Prop.” & urlCell).ResultStr(“”)
id = shp.Cells(idProp).ResultStr(“”)
urlNew = Left(urlOld, Len(urlOld) – 5 – Len(Format(id, “#”))) & “DispForm.aspx?ID=” & Format(id, “#”)
shp.Cells(“Hyperlink.” & urlCell & “.Address”).FormulaU = “=””” & urlNew & “”””
             End If
         Next shp
     Next pag

End Sub

Published on July 25, 2008 by David Parker

Hyperlinks to SharePoint Lists from Visio Shapes

My previous post showed how to link Visio Timelines to a SharePoint Calendar ( http://bvisual.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3350D61BC93733A9!552.entry ), and I glibbly mentioned how you can create hyperlinks automatically on the shapes from the SharePoint list. Well, that was true, but the example shown goes to a SharePoint page, and it didn’t work. So, I feel I need to demonstrate a fix for it.

Published on July 24, 2008 by David Parker

Using SharePoint Calendars with Visio Timelines

I was recently asked if it is possible to use SharePoint calendars with Visio Timeline Shapes automatically. My first reaction was “not without code”, but a closer inspection reveals that you can use Visio 2007 Professional Link Data to Shapes quite easily….

~~Firstly, I found the WSS Demo site~~ ~~http://www.wssdemo.com/application/default.aspx~~ ~~to be useful.~~ [This is no longer available]

In Visio 2007 Professional, you can use Data / Link Data to Shapes … to get data from Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services:

[Read more…]

Published on July 13, 2008 by David Parker

Flags of the World

I was recently asked how to add a country flag to Visio Org Chart shapes automatically. Well, as I am currently working with world data at the moment, I have taken up the challenge. Firstly, the CIA have an excellent source of information, called the World Factbook ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ ). You can find all sorts of information about every country in the world, including, of course, their flags. There are over 240 countries at the moment, and there are various codes used by different systems to identify them. Even the name may not be the same, for example, do I live in UK, United Kingdom, Great Britain, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or just plain old England? Answers on a post card, please, addressed to …..?

Alternatively, a country can be identified accurately with a code, but you need to know which system is being used. United Kingdom can be identified by GB in the Iso 2 character system, or 826 in the Iso numeric system, or UK in the FIPS 10 system. The CIA World Factbook utilises the FIPS 10 code, so consequently, all of the country related web pages and images are coded with this system.

I have already created an Access database with all this information, so I decided to use this knowledge to create a Flags of the World Visio Master.

[Read more…] about Flags of the World

Published on June 19, 2008 by David Parker

Enhancing Visio Data Graphics Text Callouts

Visio 2007 Professional introduced the wonderful Data Graphics feature to display Shape Data in a clear visual way, but it is not clear how you may, for example, change the font of even the simplest Graphic Item type, Text Callouts. In this blog, I’ll show you one method that I employ to vary the appearance of Text Callouts. The same technique can be used for other Graphic Item types, Icon Sets and Data Bars.

I am using the the sample IT Asset Management drawing to demonstrate throughout, which can be found in the Samples Template Category. In this diagram, the server shapes on the topology page use the Topology 1 Data Graphic, which can be seen in the Data Graphics panel.

[Read more…]

Published on April 20, 2008 by David Parker

Setting Visio Shape Cell Values By Connections

A recent newsgroup poster asked me to explain how to set the line color and weight of a connector according to the shapes it is connected to. So, in this article, I have tried to explain one method of achieving this with minimal external coding.

In this example, I have created a rectangle shape that has a single Shape Data row, MyData, which has a fixed list of values, A;B;C.

The connector shape has been modified to trigger an event whenever a connection is made or unmade. If the user successfully connects two rectangles with the same MyData value, then the line (weight and color) of the connector shape is amended to match the rectangle shapes.