I have been using (Microsoft) Visio for importing and exporting data since 1996, and was an early tester/adopter of the Database Wizard features in Visio 4.1 (I think). I think of Visio as a data visualization tool, yet I cannot recall seeing a comprehensive list of the areas in Visio, out-of-the-box, where you can import and export data easily. So I decided to draw a data-linked diagram of just this for Visio 2010.
I have made the files available for you at the following links:
There is a new book out for Visio 2010 beginners, Visio 2010 Step by Step, published by O’Reilly and written by my fellow Visio MVP, Scott Helmers. The book is written in the clear style that is familiar to the series, and should be a useful adjunct to any user who wants an easy introduction to Visio 2010.
A colleague, who is an experienced Visio tutor, asked me how to hook VBA macros to the Fluent UI Ribbon. He figured that it must\should be easy, but he can’t see where it is done. Well, this question has resonance because a plea was made to the Microsoft Visio team at our recent MVP Conference that this often asked for feature should be made easy for the macro developer. Now, I must admit that I have been so busy writing .Net Visio Add-Ins and following the pattern for the Fluent UI in VSTO C# code, that I had not appreciated just how convoluted the calling of VBA from a Ribbon button is. So, I thought I would offer a way of doing this in a simple (I hope!) way.
I will show how this can be done for a Visio drawing or template that contains VBA macros, and how this can be also be used for a Visio stencil that contains the code. I know that some macro developers put their code into drawings, but I would always recommend putting the code into a stencil, if the code is to be used by multiple drawings.
The Visio team’s Insight Blog has some useful background at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visio/archive/2010/02/24/user-interface-extensibility-in-visio-2010.aspx , but it only has one fleeting mention of VBA macros:
For VBA, you simply provide the contents of a RibbonX XML as a string directly to Visio through the CustomUI property.
So, what does that mean? How do you actually do it?
Well, there is some sample code in the Visio 2016 SDK.
I attended the ninth DDD on Saturday (see http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/ ), and, as usual, there were many interesting presentations. Sam Bourton extolled the virtues of Microsoft Expression Blend for WPF and Silverlight developers (NOT designers note!), and he showed a neat trick to create icons quickly by using Wingding symbols. Basically, he created a text block in Blend, inserted a symbol from one of the three Wingding fonts character maps, then converted the symbol to a path. It struck me that we could do a similar trick in Visio to create Data Graphic Icon Sets cheaply … so here goes…..
In this example, I am using a Process shape from the Basic Flowchart stencil because it has a Status Shape Data row that is defined as a choice from six different values (the first value is an empty text string).
Choice of Values for Status Shape Data row
[Read more…] about Using Character Map Symbols as Data Graphic IconsMy latest book, which is about validating diagrams in Visio 2010 ( https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-visio-2010-business-process-diagramming/book ) was published by Packt Publishing last year.
You can get 25% off during January, if you buy more than one Microsoft book from them. Please read the details at https://www.packtpub.com/article/microsoft-books .
The Visio Web Access (VWA) web part for SharePoint 2010 can be used to display and interact with Visio documents. The VWA web part includes a Shape Information pane that can be used to display the hyperlinks and shape data of each Visio shape. This article describes how to control the information that appears in this pane.
The Visio Web Access web part for SharePoint 2010 itself has the ability to inhibit interaction with hyperlinks or shape selection by using the Edit Web Part properties panel.
The hyperlinks of a shape can still be available from the Shape Informtion pane, if you have not hidden it.
Active hyperlinks on a shape can get in the way of selecting it in the VWA web part, so Disable Hyperlink is usually required.
[Read more…] about Preparing for Visio Web Access control events