This is just a quick note to say that I have just had a blog post published on a Microsoft web-site. It is a very selective history of messaging and encryption, using Visio SmartShapes to demonstrate some aspects of this :
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uktechnet/2016/05/27/a-history-of-messaging-and-encryption/
You too an visit The National Museum of Computing at http://www.tnmoc.org/
I will be presenting a one-hour webinar today at 1pm UK time entitled, Getting better value from your process diagrams with Visio 2016.
Process flow diagrams are amongst the most popular diagram types in Visio, but many users do not know some of the tips, tricks and techniques for getting the best out of Visio, in terms of productivity and efficiency.
This webinar covers understanding structured diagrams, enhancing shape data rows, hyperlinking, validation and exporting.
Follow this link to register : Microsoft Visio Webinar Series
I have made some small improvements to my visViewer application ( see http://www.visviewer.com/ ), and it will now work with the Microsoft Visio Viewer 2016 edition ( see Download Microsoft Visio 2016 Viewer from Official )
I have a new book on Visio coming out in June called Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio Professional 2016. It covers the ins and outs of data with Visio!
Please visit http://bit.ly/1SeVfwW for more information.
Packt Publishing are currently running a deal on my last book, Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation , until 12th April 2016:
Follow this link : 1LHNDwI
My good friend and fellow Visio MVP, John Goldsmith, aka visualSignals.typepad.co.uk, was telling me about a family visit to a semaphore tower over the weekend. Well, I just couldn’t resist making a flag semaphore shape in Visio. First, I looked up semaphore up Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_semaphore .
The character can easily be changed with the Shape Data panel … and watch the arms rotate … best with a wheel mouse rolling up and down in the Character drop-down
[Read more…] about Visio Rocks for Flag Semaphore … or another use of ListsA few years ago, I wrote an article about displaying the RGB value of shapes ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2010/04/22/displaying-the-rgb-values-of-shapes ). I had forgotten about it, but a reader recently asked if it was possible to force the Foregnd field to display the RGB value for the standard color palette values. For example, red is number 2 in the palette, and has a value of RGB(255,0,0). In revisiting the article, I realised that there is a smarter way to display the values, without the need of any macros.
I simply created a master shape that exposes each of the cells in the Fill and Line sections as Shape Data rows. This allows me to enter values in the Shape Data window and see the effect on the shape immediately. So, it was easy to drop one shape, insert text fields, and then use the Array Shapes tool to layout the shapes. Finally, I just entered the the standard color map numbers 0 to 24 in the FillForegnd Shape Data row.
