I have now finished three articles about the differences between the Visio desktop and web apps, and how you can already create custom templates for Visio Plan 1.
Comparing Visio for the Web and Desktop
Customising Visio shapes for the web app
Key differences between the Visio desktop and web apps
Register for my webinar Providing Custom Templates for Visio web app
I work a lot with layers in Visio, and written an add-in, LayerManager, to assist, but I was asked an interesting question recently: How can shapes by assigned to layers automatically from a list in Excel? So, I thought I would present my solution. This particular request was for a Timeline diagram, where the Milestone shapes are to be on specific layers. So, I just used one of the samples provided with Visio.
[Read more…] about Assigning Visio Shapes to Layers from Excel TableI was trying to review the appearance of the custom line and fill patterns in Visio, but was annoyed that they are only displaying a name without a preview image. I could not find them easily on the web either, so I thought I would list them here, with images. These custom patterns are available in three Microsoft-provided stencils in the Visio Extras category.
In the new normal of social distancing, we can easily miss the nuances of facial expressions with the the various electronic communication platforms that we utilise. In our personal communications via mobile apps, we have all started to use Emojis to express sentiment and actions, although we can sometimes convey the wrong meanings unintentionally as some Emojis get re-purposed by certain sections of society. Microsoft Windows 10 added native support for Emojis a year ago, and they can be inserted into many Microsoft applications using the onscreen keyboard 👀:
My company became a Visio business partner in 1998, so that was a couple of years before Microsoft acquired Visio for what was their largest purchase at the time. Microsoft wound down the annual Visio worldwide conferences that used to happen, and Visio partners became lost in the much larger multi-faceted Microsoft partner community. We lost the hub where Visio solution providers, or companies that used Visio within their own applications, or just business productivity users, could share ideas and cross-fertilize. I still have friends and connections from those pre-Microsoft days, and we also have a small number of Microsoft MVPs who specialise in Visio who keep up regular contact. What we missed is a central hub that anyone can access to find partners that have Visio skills, either for development or knowledge transfer, or can have applications that utilise Visio. So it is very welcome to see that Microsoft have now revamped their Visio partner portal to include featured partners and solutions. Please check out this web page and I think the partners are fortuitously listed alphabetically for me….
Like a lot of UK TV viewers last week, I watched Quiz, a drama about Major Charles Ingram who apparently cheated his way to the jackpot in Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Some of the questions that he was asked were quoted in that show, and I was surprised how easy the last two questions were for me, but that was probably because of my own education as a building architect. However, I decided to lookup the rest of the questions, and I would have fallen before getting to those questions unless my Phone-A-Friend could have helped me on one in particular. At the same time, I was thinking about the differences between Visio desktop and web editions (yeah, really!), so I have created a Visio document that contains all of the questions that the Major answered correctly. This document can be viewed by everyone and downloaded. If it is saved into OneDrive or SharePoint Online and then viewed online.
