Visio 2010

Published on February 15, 2010 by David Parker

Writing rules to validate diagrams in Visio 2010 – A worked example

Microsoft Visio 2010 Premium Edition introduced an extension to the Visio Type Library called the Validation API. This provides the capability to validate a Visio diagram to ensure that its construction complies with industry-standard or company –wide rules.

Organizations are able to use this new feature to encapsulate business logic as validation rules, grouped within rule sets.

Microsoft Visio 2010 Premium edition contains rule sets for use with Basic and Cross-Functional Flowcharts, BPMN Diagrams and SharePoint Workflow Designer diagrams.

This article describes how you can create your own rule sets and rules.

[Read more…]

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!

Published on September 21, 2009 by David Parker

Visio 2010 Validation Rules (part 2)

In my previous post, I began to explore the new Validation objects in the Visio 2010 Technical Preview, an I used some VBA code to do this. Well, I have now uploaded the code to OneDrive ( bVisualValidationExplorer.vss ), so that you can use it too! So, this post is about using this code …

First, download the stencil and save it to you My Shapes folder (if you trust me). This will make it available to you to use in any Visio 2010 document.

Then, whenever you want to use the code, simply open the stencil from the More Shapes / My Shapes category….

The stencil will be docked with the other shape stencils, but, of course, this stencil does not have any shapes … only VBA code.

Published on September 16, 2009 by David Parker

Visio 2010 Validation Rules (part 1)

The Microsoft Visio team recently blogged about Creating custom validation rules for Visio 2010 , in which it was suggested that we can use Visual Basic for Applications to interact with the new validation API. I thought, there’s a challenge … so I will develop a VBA project to do just that. I will upload the code soon, but, as it is only half developed today, I will demonstrate how to understand why a rule has been broken.

In the following BPMN diagram, I have failed to connect a Task to the End Event. I have made it obvious here but it could be easy to overlook in a larger diagram. In fact, I know of one company who were advised by a “consultant” that there must be something wrong when the end of a connector goes red therefore you should move it away from the shape until it goes green! The result was that the company had over 300 flow diagrams without a single valid connection! That company is no more!

[Read more…]

Published on September 16, 2009 by David Parker

Listing Connections in Visio 2010

One of the best bits of Visio is the connections between shapes, but it has always been difficult to understand these connections in code. There are connections to and from shapes, which require you to understand where you are and which way to look … at the beginning or the end of a 1D connector. Visio 2010 has added some useful extra methods to the shape object which makes understanding connections much easier. This post will show you how you can use the new GluedShapes() and ConnectedShapes() methods.

Take, for example, a network diagram where there are connections between servers and routers:

You may wish to list the connections at the start and end of each cable. Previously, this would have meant inspecting the connected cell to see if was at the beginning or end of the line, but now you can use the GluedShapes() method of a shape to retrieve an array of the 2D shapes connected at one end or another with the relevant arguments, visGluedShapesIncoming2D or visGluedShapesOutgoing2D. The ListGluedConnections macro below displays the following in the immediate window:

Connector     Dynamic connector
>             Router.45     router-02
<             Server        server-01 Connector     Dynamic connector.107 >             Router.45     router-02
<             Server.30     server-02 Connector     Dynamic connector.108 >             Router        router-01
<             Server.75     server-03 Connector     Dynamic connector.109 >             Router.91     router-03
<             Server.30     server-02 Connector     Dynamic connector.110 >             Router.91     router-03
<             Server        server-01

Public Sub ListGluedConnections()
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Dim connectorShape As Visio.Shape
Dim sourceShape As Visio.Shape
Dim targetShape As Visio.Shape
Dim aryTargetIDs() As Long
Dim arySourceIDs() As Long
Dim targetID As Long
Dim sourceID As Long
Dim i As Integer

For Each shp In Visio.ActivePage.Shapes
    If shp.OneD Then
        Debug.Print "Connector", shp.Name
        arySourceIDs = shp.GluedShapes(visGluedShapesIncoming2D, "")
        For i = 0 To UBound(arySourceIDs)
            Set sourceShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(arySourceIDs(i))
            If sourceShape.CellExists("Prop.NetworkName", Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then
                Debug.Print , ">", sourceShape.Name, sourceShape.Cells("Prop.NetworkName").ResultStr("")
            End If
        Next
        aryTargetIDs = shp.GluedShapes(visGluedShapesOutgoing2D, "")
        For i = 0 To UBound(aryTargetIDs)
            Set targetShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(aryTargetIDs(i))
            If targetShape.CellExists("Prop.NetworkName", Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then
                Debug.Print , "<", targetShape.Name, targetShape.Cells("Prop.NetworkName").ResultStr("")
            End If
        Next
    End If
Next

End Sub

Similarly, you may want to simply list the next connected 2D shape, effectively ignoring the cable. In this case, you can use the new ConnectedShapes() method, with the relevant arguments visGluedShapesIncoming2D or visGluedShapesOutgoing2D, to produce an output like the following ( using the ListNextConnections macro below):

Shape         Server        server-01
>             Router.45     router-02
>             Router.91     router-03
Shape         Router        router-01
<             Server.75     server-03 Shape         Server.30     server-02 >             Router.45     router-02
>             Router.91     router-03
Shape         Router.45     router-02
<             Server        server-01
<             Server.30     server-02 Shape         Server.75     server-03 >             Router        router-01
Shape         Router.91     router-03
<             Server        server-01
<             Server.30     server-02

Public Sub ListNextConnections()
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Dim connectorShape As Visio.Shape
Dim sourceShape As Visio.Shape
Dim targetShape As Visio.Shape
Dim aryTargetIDs() As Long
Dim arySourceIDs() As Long
Dim targetID As Long
Dim sourceID As Long
Dim i As Integer

For Each shp In Visio.ActivePage.Shapes
    If Not shp.OneD Then
        If shp.CellExists("Prop.NetworkName", Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then
            Debug.Print "Shape", shp.Name, shp.Cells("Prop.NetworkName").ResultStr("")
            arySourceIDs = shp.ConnectedShapes(visConnectedShapesOutgoingNodes, "")
            For i = 0 To UBound(arySourceIDs)
                Set sourceShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(arySourceIDs(i))
                If sourceShape.CellExists("Prop.NetworkName", Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then
                    Debug.Print , "<", sourceShape.Name, sourceShape.Cells("Prop.NetworkName").ResultStr("") End If Next aryTargetIDs = shp.ConnectedShapes(visConnectedShapesIncomingNodes, "") For i = 0 To UBound(aryTargetIDs) Set targetShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(aryTargetIDs(i)) If targetShape.CellExists("Prop.NetworkName", Visio.visExistsAnywhere) Then Debug.Print , ">", targetShape.Name, targetShape.Cells("Prop.NetworkName").ResultStr("")
                End If
            Next
        End If
    End If
Next

End Sub

I think this makes interrogation of connected diagrams, of all flavours, much simpler, though I would love to have similar ShapeSheet functions too!