Visio

Published on August 16, 2013 by David Parker

Visio Map of the World

I have often wanted a Visio map of the world, with countries that can be linked to data. There are a number of Visio country shapes that are available for download on the internet, but they are fairly old, and certainly don’t have an up to date world. For example, South Sudan is currently the newest country in the world (2011), though a lot of resources on the web don’t show it. So, I was relieved to find a good SVG world map at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BlankMap-FlatWorld6.svg?uselang=en-gb . Even better was that each of the shapes are named with the ISO2 code. This meant that I could use Link Data to Shapes to automatically create Shape Data from an Excel worksheet that I put together from various sources.

Note that I had to add Kosovo manually, since it was not on the original map, as it’s status as a country is in dispute. The ISO codes have apparently been temporarily assigned.

[Read more…]

Published on July 8, 2013 by David Parker

MVP Sessions for Getting Started with Visio 2010

Back in June 2012, I announced the Microsoft sponsored MVP Sessions for Visio 2010 (see http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/06/29/mvp-sessions-wheel/ ). Well, Visio 2013 has been released since then, so Microsoft have changed the links for the videos. So, I have created a web page to provide access to them: http://www.visiorules.com/gallery/MVPSessions/MVPSessions.htm

I have also created a pdf file with hyperlinks : http://www.visiorules.com/gallery/MVPSessions/MVPSessionsWheel.pdf

Published on June 18, 2013 by David Parker

Comparison of Visio Save As Web Outputs

SharePoint 2013 Visio Services provides a great solution for viewing the actual Visio file directly within a SharePoint web page, however you need to be logged into your corporate web to do this. So, how can you view Visio files in a web page if you cannot use Visio Services?

You could build a web page with the Visio Viewer control, but that is ActiveX and will only work in certain controlled conditions. The benchmark has to be allowing the Visio file to be viewed on an iPad, or an Android tablet, or Surface RT. Visio Services in SharePoint 2013 will enable this, and will allow for the Visio document to be zoomed, panned, and the Shape Data and hyperlinks to be viewed and used, but, again, this is not always available.

Published on May 21, 2013 by David Parker

Getting the Name of Glued Connection Points

A Visio developer asked me if it is possible to get the name of connection points that a connector is glued to in Visio. Well, it is not possible directly from the ShapeSheet, but is easy if you use a little code.

First of all, I created a simple Block shape with 3 named connection points on either side of it. I added a little text to the block to display the shape name, and to remind me where the named connection points are.

Published on April 4, 2013 by David Parker

Visio 2013 training for developers

Microsoft have just released a series of 9 videos about developing with Visio Services 2013 : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/fp161532

Thanks guys … really good stuff … and a good recap for all the attendees of the course that I run.

Published on April 1, 2013 by David Parker

MVP Award … again

1st April is the time for April Fools, but I am pleased to report that this fool is still an MVP, as I am pleased to say that I have received that important email from Microsoft. I genuinely worry that one year I will receive bad news … but, lucky for me, not this year! The most important part of this award is the relationship that it gives me with the Microsoft Visio product team because we few Visio MVPs feel like our feedback is appreciated. I must admit that my MVP award does get me some paid work, for example, I have been teaching Visio Services around Europe for Microsoft Western Europe for most of the last year. I have really enjoyed these days because I get to see new places, meet interesting people, and almost always get the same reaction … I didn’t know Visio could do that!

I have got to know SharePoint because of my Visio skills, and I have seen big improvements in Visio Services with the 2013 release, with the addition of Business Connectivity Services as an out-of-the box data source, and the presentation of the Visio Web Access web parts as html/png. The latter enables the Visio based dashboards to be viewed on popular tablets (you know, those non-Windows 8 ones…). But perhaps the most exciting enhancement to Visio Services 2013 is the full calculation of ShapeSheet formulas by the automatic refresh if they are linked to data using a refreshable data source. This is possible because of the new file format, so Visio 2013 diagrams no longer need to be published to SharePoint into a binary file with an Silverlight overlay.

I intend to spend more time, over the next year, exploring the possibilities of Visio and SharePoint integration, and share what I learn here.