A reader of my blog recently asked whether it is possible to use the icons in out-of-the-box Visio as the main shape, and get it to refresh with data. I pointed out that all of the icon sets are available in a handy stencil under Visio Extras, so all that remains is to make the icon display change according to data values.
I like embedding Visio diagrams into SharePoint web pages, but I am not too enamoured with the Shape Info panel and the popup hyperlinks menu because they clutter the diagram surface. So, I thought I would take some time to make an html document that can be included in a Content Editor web part. This html document includes JavaScript to read the hyperlinks and Shape Data of each selected shape, and, besides providing the opportunity to style the resultant table, allows you to interpret the content of the Shape Data values, and even the hyperlinks. I have shown an example where the multiple hyperlinks on the selected shape are clickable in the top list, and those interpreted from the values in Shape Data rows are clickable, and listed below the regular Shape Data rows. Of course, I could have combined the two types of hyperlinks into one list, separated from the regular Shape Data. Note that the values in the built-in Shape Info panel are not clickable.
So, this means that I can do away with the Shape Info panel and the hyperlinks popup within the Visio Web Access control, and provide hyperlinks, buttons, images, media files, or whatever, in the Content Editor html document. Therefore, I untick the Show the Shape Information Pane option, and tick the Disable Hyperlink option in the web part editor.
[Read more…] about Using JavaScript to Display Visio Shape Data and Hyperlinks in SharePoint Content EditorI have recently been working on an FM project where I have spaces and personnel shapes in Visio floor plans data linked to Excel tables. I constructed a number of related tables in an Excel workbook and wanted to demonstrate the relationships. I decided that this is best explained with a combination of a diagram and sample data , so this article describes how to connect Visio and Excel web parts together in SharePoint 2013 web pages, without code.
First, I constructed an Excel Services workbook and a Visio Services document.
The Excel workbook has a number of tables on similarly named worksheets.
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Following on from my last post ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/06/13/introducing-explore-visioa-windows-8-1-app/ ), I have now managed to release the second part of my first Universal App … eXplore Visio, to the Windows Phone Store.
It is free, but contains adverts, and can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/1lDenY0
As with the Windows App, you can view the contents of Visio, without Visio, and there is are links to a variety of Visio resources.
Microsoft recently launched Universal Windows Apps, which offers the prospect of developing apps for Windows and Windows Phone from one code base. They also offered a prize entry for all apps listed before start of June 2014. Well, that was enough for me to try my hand at one, but I failed to hit the prize entry deadline, but have just launched the first part of my Universal App – eXplore Visio for Windows 8.1. This app was supposed to be a simple listing of the contents of the various editions of Visio 2013, but it became slightly more…
I also wanted to learn more about Windows Azure, so I ambitiously created a Windows SQL Azure database to hold all the information that I gleaned from Visio. I then created a Windows Mobile Service to provide read-only access to the data. At first, I created a .Net back-end, but although I could develop with it locally, I could not get anonymous access from the wild to work … I kept getting a request to enter an unknown user name and login, so I created a JavaScript back-end, and it worked … after I used SQL Management Studio to copy the data from one database to another. Anyway, the .Net back-end does say Preview at the moment.
Visio is always improving but sometimes some functionality is hard to find, and gets forgotten about. For example, the Custom callout 1,2 and 3 masters on the Visio Extras \ Callouts stencil have been there for a few years, yet most users do not find them or realise what they can do. They provide the ability for a connected callout shape to display the values, and optional labels, of a target shape. This can be most useful for automatic annotations because they are always up to date. However, Visio recently introduced some new Callout shapes, but this ability is not there by default. In this blog, I show you how to add this useful feature to the new Callouts.
First, let’s look at the older Custom callout shapes, which automatically open a Configure Callout dialog when connected to another shape. This callout invites you to display selected Shape Data rows of the target shape:
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