Visio Insights

Visio Conference 2008 videos posted

For anyone who wasn't able to attend the Visio Conference 2008 this February or has been itching to show everyone else the cool things coming in Visio "vNext", the wait is over!  Videos from all the conference sessions are posted on http://www.visiotoolbox.com.  Click on the conference link in the bottom-right corner of the page - or follow the links below.

Each session consists of the PowerPoint slide deck, speaker audio and video of the demos.  Use the links below to jump to the sessions for each track:

Keynotes - http://www.visiotoolbox.com/visioconference2008/Keynotes/start.htm

General Sessions - http://www.visiotoolbox.com/visioconference2008/GeneralSessions/start.htm

Solutions Track - http://www.visiotoolbox.com/visioconference2008/BusinessSolutions/start.htm

Developer Track - http://www.visiotoolbox.com/visioconference2008/SolutionDevelopment/start.htm

End User Track - http://www.visiotoolbox.com/visioconference2008/EndUser/start.htm

For those specifically interested in Visio "vNext", here are the four sessions where we demonstrated some of the capabilities coming next release:

Visualizing Information Work Today & Tomorrow - Jeff Raikes keynote

The Visio Business Today and Software Development Process - Richard Wolf keynote

Visio Future Investments - Bill Morein

Visio Futures - API Insights - John Haug and Philippe Arida

Troubleshooting

You should be able to click on a link and then click on Play.  The videos take a varying amount of time to load - a few minutes in some cases.  If you find that the UI frame around the slides / video is missing, try refreshing the web page.  This will reload the controls but the session will resume playing where you left off.

Extra drawings opening on Visio launch

This situation has come up frequently enough in the newsgroups that the solution should be widely circulated:

When Visio crashes, it will often restart and recover the document you were working on.  This is generally quite helpful, but sometimes Visio doesn't know when to stop.  Sometimes Visio will continue to recover that document and show it to you every time you launch Visio.  This can be frustrating, but there is a solution.

Close Visio.  Then look in the folder "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Visio" using Windows Explorer.  Some of the folders in the path are hidden, but you can usually paste the path found between the quotation marks directly into the address bar and press Enter.  Now find the file autorecover.ini and delete it.  The recovered documents should stop reappearing when Visio is launched.

Shape Conversion in Process Engineering

A recent newsgroup post asks for an explanation of the cells that get added to a shape when it is converted using the Process Engineering add-on. 

 

The Shape Conversion command in Process Engineering allows you to make any shape work like the built-in Process Engineering shapes.  We recognized that customers who made Piping & Instrumentation diagrams often had custom equipment or valves or instruments that they needed to include in the diagram.  Shape Conversion modifies a custom shape to make it recognizable by the Process Engineering add-on and match the behaviors of built-in shapes.

 

You can try this by drawing a rectangle and choosing Shape Conversion from the Process Engineering menu.  In the dialog, note that the shape Source is already set to Selected Shapes.  Process Engineering can also bring in shapes from other documents or CAD symbols.  Then comes the challenging part: you can optionally give the shape a Category and Tag Format.  Categories are used to organize the shape in the Component Explorer window.  You can choose an existing category or type in a new string.  Tag formats are used for automatically labeling and numbering shapes.  You must choose from an existing tag format.  Visio only offers you choices for Categories and Tag Formats that already exist in the drawing, so if you want your shape to be a piece of Equipment you should drop a built-in Equipment shape on the drawing before converting your custom shape.

 



 

After clicking OK, you can open the Shapesheet window to see what changes were made to your shape.  The primary change is the set of User-defined cells added to the shape.  These cells identify the shape and control its behavior in the diagram.

 



 

Here is a brief explanation of each cell:

User.SOLSH	A GUID (unique identifier) that tells Visio what add-on is managing the shape.  All shapes that are used with Process Engineering, need the GUID matching the Process Engineering add-on.
User.ShapeClass	The Category that the shape is assigned to.  The shape appears under this name in the Component Explorer.
User.PEComponentTag	The current tag name (label & number) for the shape.
User.PETagFormat	The Tag Format name and expression for the shape.  Unless the Component Tag has been overwritten, this is the automatically generated label displayed on the shape.
User.PETagNumber	The sequence number for the shape.  Visio updates this value when components are renumbered.  This value then feeds into the Component Tag.
User.PEHideTag	A Boolean value that determines whether the Component Tag is displayed on the shape.  This is manipulated by an Action in the Actions section.
User.PEPageHideTags	A value that references the global page setting for hiding tags.  If tags are hidden at the page level, then the local setting is ignored.
User.PELayout	This is a bit flag that controls the layout behavior of the components in the diagram.  Mostly these settings determine how the split and heal features in Process Engineering work.  Here are the bits:   CAUSES SPLIT = 1 (Splits connector when dropped on connector) CAUSES HEAL = 2 (Heals connector when deleted) ALLOWS SPLIT = 4 (Connector splits when shape dropped) ALLOWS HEAL = 8 (Connector heals when shape deleted) ALLOWS JUNCTION = 16  (Connector to connector connection) JUNCTION IN USE = 32  (Temporary state)   The default setting here is 31, which enables all the split and heal and junction behaviors.

 

There are a few other changes to connection points, action cells and text to complete the conversion.  These are straightforward changes, and you can inspect the Shapesheet to see the details.

 

CAD Integration Announcement for Visio "vNext"

This morning at Day 2 of Visio Conference 2008, we announced that the next version of Visio will add support for AutoCAD 2007 DWG and DXF file formats.  As mentioned in previous blog posts, this was a major request from Visio customers and partners.

General Manager Richard Wolf explained in his keynote address how Visio prioritizes feature investments that improve the entire Visio platform over changes that enhance just a single vertical market.  CAD integration is valuable to a broad set of customers spanning the Engineering, Facilities Management and Information Technology markets.  Richard then demonstrated an example of inserting an AutoCAD 2007 floorplan of a data center, overlaying Visio server shapes, adding Data Graphics to show cabinet temperatures and then publishing the diagram to Visio Services for display in a web dashboard.  Thus, while CAD integration does not fall under the three investment areas described on Day 1, it was high on the team's priority list for Visio "vNext" given the applicability to data visualization scenarios across several diagram types.

Day 2 also featured demonstrations of new capabilities for developers and shape designers:

RibbonX

Visio "vNext" adds support for RibbonX, the API for the Office Fluent user interface.  Existing Visio solutions with custom UI will work unmodified in the Ribbon, but solutions can use RibbonX for a much richer integration into the Ribbon.

Structured Diagrams

Visio "vNext" allows solution developers to work with Visio diagrams at a logical level instead of at the physical level.  Visio exposes relationships between shapes that can be discovered and traversed to simplify the understanding of the diagram structure.  Three common relationships are defined: connectivity, containment and callouts.

Visio Services API

Visio "vNext" provides a JavaScript API for accessing and enhancing diagrams rendered by Visio Services.  Web page scripts can extract information about the shapes displayed in the diagram for use in another frame.  Scripts can also highlight shapes, place overlays on shapes and manipulate the diagram's viewport for pan and zoom.

The feedback received over the last two days at the Visio Conference has been tremendous.  We're happy to see people so enthusiastic about our Visio "vNext" plans.  There is still much work to be done, and we hope that the Visio community will continue providing feedback as we disclose more over time.

Visio "vNext"

Tuesday more than 300 customers, partners and Visio community members gathered for Day 1 of Visio Conference 2008.   Attendees were treated to an impressive array of partner solutions, product demonstrations and information-filled sessions.  To top it all off, attendees got the first sneak peak at the next version of Microsoft Office Visio. 

At this point Visio "vNext" is still in an early stage (pre-Alpha), but we wanted to give everyone a glimpse of the fantastic capabilities of the next version and outline our high-level investments.  Keep in mind that plans can and do change as we respond to feedback and continue working toward completion.  We are publicly showing just a few of the features planned.  Here are the three areas where we are concentrating most of our efforts:

Process Management

Visio "vNext" reinvents the core flowcharting experience in Visio.  Flowchart creation is faster and easier than ever.  Cross-functional flowcharts in particular are improved.  Going beyond a simple drawing canvas, Visio understands the logical structure of the diagram far better.  This leads to more advanced process diagramming capabilities that put the user firmly in control over the graphical representation of their processes.

Ease of Use

Visio "vNext" adopts the Office Fluent user interface that you see today in Office 2007 core applications.  The Ribbon and Live Preview components in particular take the guesswork out of finding Visio commands and choosing between settings.  At the same time Visio improves a wide range of existing features, bringing the results-oriented concepts behind the Fluent UI onto the diagramming surface itself.  The Shapes window, layout and AutoConnect are significantly enhanced.  Visio is even easier to use and significantly reduces the time needed to create and modify diagrams.

Visio Services

Visio "vNext" introduces server-rendered, data-refreshable diagrams for the first time.  Visio Services allows data connected diagrams to be published from Visio to a server and viewed by users directly in their web browser.  There are no client bits to install.  An API is also provided for creating mashups of diagrams and additional data.

There is far more to talk about with Visio "vNext".  In future posts we will begin to provide more details and present screen shots.  However, there are also plenty of things to discuss about the current Visio 2007 product.  We'll cover both in the coming months.  Please stay tuned and be sure to give us your feedback.

Visio as a Business Process Analysis Tool

Visio had the opportunity to present at Microsoft's SOA & BP conference last November on using Visio as a Business Process Analysis Tool.  A video of that presentation is now available for viewing.  Mark Nelson from the Visio team describes how Visio 2007 helps bring BPA to the masses through its in-box feature set and robust solutions platform.  Also Keith Sharp from partner Ascentn demonstrates their AgilePoint BPM product, which is built on the Visio platform.

Images and the Dynamic Grid

A recent newsgroup post described a problem getting the Dynamic Grid feature to work with images.  The user inserted pictures into their diagram and wanted the same alignment aids that Visio provides for regular shapes.  This can be done with a small modification of the image shapes.  First let's look at the Dynamic Grid behavior for regular Visio shapes (i.e. shapes with geometry).

The shape on the right is being dragged near the shape on the left.  When the Dynamic Grid is turned on (Tools > Snap & Glue dialog), Visio displays both horizontal and vertical alignment lines.  The horizontal line indicates that the centers of the shapes are aligned.  The vertical line indicates that the shapes will be separated by a standard spacing amount.

If you try the same thing with images, Visio produces different results.

The vertical alignment line is shown, but the horizontal line is not shown.  These shapes do not have any visible geometry, which Visio uses as criterion for alignment.  When you insert a picture in Visio, the resulting shape has a geometry section but the Line Pattern is set to No Line.  It turns out that by making a simple adjustment in the shape, you can make Visio recognize the hidden geometry section and get full Dynamic Grid support.  In the Shapesheet (Window > Show Shapesheet), find the LinePattern cell and set it to 1.  This makes the shape work with Dynamic Grid.  Now to hide the rectangle around the image, find the Geometry section and set Geometry1.NoShow to TRUE.  This makes the border invisible once again but does not disrupt the Dynamic Grid behavior.

Here is the feedback when the Dynamic Grid is working with the modified image shapes.  Note that the change must be made on the shape your are aligning to (i.e. the shape not being dragged).

Perhaps Visio can make this workaround unnecessary in the future.  Meanwhile this is one way to make your images behave just like regular Visio shapes.

Visio Toolbox Site

Microsoft has significantly updated its Visio product information on the web.  Check out the new site at http://www.visiotoolbox.com.

You will find articles, training and downloads that provide a wealth of information on Visio 2007.  Those that found the previous IT Toolkit valuable will appreciate the free products and promotional offers on the site.  Note that some items require you to register on the site first.

CAD Integration in Visio - Part 2

In the previous post we reviewed the problems users were encountering with the CAD Integration feature set in Visio 2003 and the fixes that were made in Visio 2007.  In this post we look at the remaining issues with CAD and Visio.

Converting CAD drawings to Visio shapes

Visio 2003 changed the way that CAD drawings are converted to Visio shapes.  Instead of converting each entity and adding it as a Visio shape, the entities are converted in bulk to an intermediate document and then the entire document is merged into the current drawing in one big Paste operation.  This change makes conversion up to 10 times faster – a significant improvement.  However, Visio now requires quite a bit more memory to accomplish the task.  On PCs without sufficient memory, performance degrades because Visio must page memory to disk. 

Additionally we have found that some really large CAD files fail to convert.  There is a limit to the number of entities that can be converted at once, though this limit is not easily expressed as a quantifiable number.  Unfortunately the failure comes near the end of the lengthy operation rather than at the beginning.  Visio 2007 does not remedy this situation.  Your best bet is to divide up the diagram into more layers and then convert the layers individually.  While Visio should handle this situation better, keep in mind that CAD programs are designed to deal with hundreds of thousands of simple entities and Visio is designed to deal with thousands of complex entities.  It's difficult to scale up to support the largest CAD drawings out there.  Simplifying the drawing before bringing it into Visio is recommended.

DWG file formats supported by Visio

A frequent complaint from users is that Visio refuses to open a DWG file because it was saved in a newer format.  Visio 2003 and 2007 do not support the latest file formats used in AutoCAD programs.  That means CAD files must be saved back to a compatible version before they can be used with Visio.  Visio 2003 and 2007 support the R15 version of the DWG format.  This was the default format used by AutoCAD 2000 and AutoCAD 2002.  Newer versions of AutoCAD save to newer versions of the DWG format by default.

Additionally, Visio does not support all the entities defined in the R15 version of the DWG format.  In terms of entity support, Visio handles the entities defined in the R14 version of the DWG format with a few exceptions.  A specific entity list is beyond the scope of this blog post.  The point is that the level of entity support and the version of the file format supported are not identical.

Note that there was a specific problem where files saved out from AutoCAD 2007 would not open in Visio 2007 even when saved back to the R15 format.  This was corrected in Visio 2007 SP1.

What's next for CAD integration 

It's too soon to announce our plans for the next release.  We continue to gather information from customers about their needs for CAD with Visio.  Your input on specific issues or the overall importance of CAD integration to your Visio usage is encouraged.

CAD Integration in Visio - Part 1

Visio has long had the ability to display, import and export CAD drawings stored in the DWG and DXF file formats.  If you are unfamiliar with the ways that Visio can work with CAD drawings, please read through this previous post.

In Visio 2003 the CAD feature set was overhauled to improve performance and reliability plus provide a better mapping of Visio shapes to CAD entities on Export.  There were changes in the CAD Display Properties and Conversion dialogs as well.  Unfortunately there were a number of serious bugs that impacted the functionality of the feature set.  A few items have been fixed in Visio 2003 service packs, but many more were addressed in Visio 2007.

This post describes the problems in Visio 2003 that were corrected in Visio 2007.  The next post will discuss the remaining issues surrounding Visio's CAD integration.

Insert CAD Drawing

There are two ways to display a CAD drawing in a Visio document.  If you go to File > Open, you can point directly at the DWG or DXF file and open it.  Visio creates a new blank drawing, chooses a page scale that will fit the CAD drawing to the Visio page and adds the CAD drawing.  Another method is to start from an existing diagram and go to Insert > CAD Drawing.  Visio shows the CAD Drawing Properties dialog and allows you to specify the scale you want to use.  Unfortunately, there are several issues going this route in Visio 2003:

·         Visio defaults to a custom scale that fits the CAD object to the page, but this scale does not match the scale of the Visio page.  If you choose this default, the CAD object will be scaled incorrectly with respect to everything else in the diagram.  When inserting into an existing diagram you should always choose the current page scale.  The custom scale default is really only useful when you want to use the CAD drawing as an unscaled image in your diagram.

·         Since CAD drawings don't explicitly define what units of measure are used, you must specify the CAD drawing units in the dialog to properly scale the CAD object.  This can be confusing, and in Visio 2003 the setting doesn't work.  The value is ignored, resulting in improper scaling for CAD objects drawn in Metric coordinates.

·         For those who bravely tried to get the scale settings configured properly, there is one more problem:  The preview pane did not update as you made changes to the settings.  Thus the visual feedback about what you would get was also wrong.

These issues combined to make Insert > CAD Drawing very challenging in Visio 2003.  Settings either didn't work or were configured improperly by default.   This created unnecessary confusion and frustration for customers.  Visio 2007 corrects these problems, although it is still the responsibility of the user to set the CAD drawing units properly to end up with the right scale.

A note of caution for Visio 2007:  The CAD Drawing Properties dialog does not remember settings very well.  Once you close the dialog and reopen it, you will have to reset the Pre-defined scale to Page Scale again.  Also do not manually resize the CAD object using the green shape handles since this just distorts the scale.

Export CAD Drawing

Visio drawings are exported to CAD files using the File > Save As > DWG / DXF command.  If there is no existing CAD object in the drawing, Visio converts the Visio shapes to entities correctly.  If there is a CAD object in the drawing, Visio 2003 fails to use the proper scale to ensure that the converted Visio shapes match up with the existing CAD object's entities.  It also fails to position the converted shapes relative to the existing CAD entities.  Additionally any cropping or rotation of the CAD object is ignored in the exported file.

Visio 2007 corrects most of the scaling and positioning issues.  There are a few cases with dimensions that still are troublesome.  Visio 2007 does not support cropping or CAD object rotation on export.

Customer Input

Many of the fixes in Visio 2007 can be credited to a group of customers that are passionate about Visio and its use with CAD drawings.  At the Visio Conference in 2006 the product team showcased the upcoming Visio 2007 version with its emphasis on data connectivity.  However, a number of partners and customers voiced concerns about the problems with CAD in Visio 2003.  In an ad-hoc meeting, we sat down with all interested parties to understand the issues and hear firsthand how important the feature is for these customers.

Following the conference, the Visio team did an extensive review of the CAD feature set to uncover the bugs that were causing the most customer pain.  These issues were corrected in Visio 2007 and released as part of the Visio 2007 betas to have partners and customers verify the fixes.  The result is a significantly better experience in Visio 2007 over Visio 2003.  We weren't able to address all concerns though.  Next time we will look at the current state of CAD integration in Visio.

Visio 2007 Service Pack 1

It's been about a year since the release of Visio 2007 and Office 2007, and Microsoft has now published Service Pack 1.  Here is the download link for English.  You can choose another language from this link as well.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=496BC7C1-ABD7-4BC7-8366-B8A4CC85803B&displaylang=en

The goals of this service pack are to provide compatibility for upcoming releases such as Windows 2008 Server, improve security and address key performance and reliability issues.

A specific fix to note for Visio:

• Microsoft Office Visio 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.

The KB article with all the details is here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937155

Reminder About Visio Conference 2008

The Early Bird registration for the 2008 Visio Conference ends November 30.  Sign up by then for a discounted rate.  More information about the specific agenda, tracks and sessions is now available on www.msvisioconference.com. 

In addition to the general sessions, there are tracks for Business Solutions, Solution Developers and End Users.  Find out how to get the most out of Visio 2007 and integrate Visio into your organization.  This is also your first opportunity to learn about what's coming in the future for Visio.

New Visio Blog

Things have been quiet here for a bit because the product team is heads down on development.  In the meantime a new blog has joined the Visio community that you might be interested in.

http://visualsignals.typepad.co.uk/vislog/

John Goldsmith is the author and a frequent newsgroup poster.  John hopes to cover common problems discussed on the newsgroups and encourage more people to dive into the Shapesheet and Visio programmability.

If you are authoring a Visio blog and want to let us know about it, please leave a comment with the information.

Register for the 2008 Visio Conference

It's time to make plans to attend the 2008 Visio Conference, the premier gathering event for the Visio community.  The Visio Conference is your chance to interact with fellow enthusiasts from around the globe including Visio partners, MVPs and the product team as well.

The last conference was held in January 2006.  Those that attended found the experience quite rewarding.  Since that time Visio 2007 has shipped, enabling many new possibilities for data connected solutions.  The details on specific conference sessions are coming, but you can check out the material from 2006 in the meantime.  The conference web site with all the information is linked below.

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR THE 2008 VISIO CONFERENCE

Make connections and gain the skills and resources to make the most of Visio at the Microsoft Office Visio Conference, February 5-6, 2008 at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond.  The event will bring the global Visio community together to network, share best practices and discuss the market opportunities for data visualization. 

Keynote speakers Jeff Raikes, President of the Microsoft Business Division and Richard Wolf, General Manager of Office Graphics, will kick off the conference.  Other highlights include networking opportunities with leaders from the Visio product and program teams, robust partner and developer tracks with industry-specific content, demonstrations of powerful Visio solutions for business and IT needs and a preview of what’s to come in Visio 14. 

Early Bird Registration rates are available now through November 30; go to www.msvisioconference.com to sign up.  Contact visconf@microsoft.com with questions or to learn more about sponsorship opportunities.

Visio 2003 Service Pack 3

Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 for the Visio 2003 product.  You can download the pack here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E6B77D9A-0749-41CE-BD1A-9BF73718593C&displaylang=en

(If English is not your install language, you can change to another one on the web page.)

Contents

The set of changes is described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938794/ 

The majority of the changes in this release are security and reliability related as Visio 2003 gets much of the same hardening that has gone into more recent versions.  There are also a number compatibility fixes to help Visio 2003 work with newer products such as IE7, Vista, SQL 2005 and even Visio 2007.

In particular the hyperlink problem with IE7 as described in this previous post has been corrected.

This update also applies to those running Visio for Enterprise Architects in Visual Studio 2005.  A number of fixes have been made to the Software / Database functionality that resides in Visio Professional as well as VEA.

And finally no update to Visio 2003 would be complete without addressing a printing problem.  Visio 2003 has had more than its fair share of printing issues.  SP3 fixes a problem with very long plotter pages.

This is a beefy download at 48MB but definitely recommended.