Bill Morein's Weblog : General

(Relatively) New blog with lots of great Visio content

wmorein — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:51:00 GMT

Somehow I had thought that I had already pointed people to Saveen Reddy's blog, but looking back through the archives I realized that I hadn't. Saveen doesn't work on the Visio team, but is a power user and knows a ton about visualization.

I'm a huge fan of Python the programming language, and he covers a lot of information on how to use Python with Visio, among other topics. Here is a recent series he started: http://blogs.msdn.com/saveenr/archive/2009/01/22/visio-ironpython-powershell-how-to-draw-nice-diagrams-from-the-command-line.aspx

Visio Conference 2008 - Agenda now posted

wmorein — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:42:00 GMT

We've posted the agenda for the upcoming Visio Conference. This conference will be expanded significantly from the last one, which was more focused on partners. This version will include a lot more end user content.

One major note: we will be disclosing a lot of information about the next version of Visio, which promises to be a huge release for us. We are in the middle of coding right now (I'm actually already using a version for my day to day work) and are really itching to tell people about all of the great stuff. We'll cover the upcoming stuff in both keynotes and will have two full sessions about it as well. If you are at all interested in the future of Visio, don't miss this conference (of course we'll be talking about the present of Visio as well, so don't miss it either way). You can register at this link.

Announcing (a bit belatedly) the Visio Conference 2008

wmorein — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:20:00 GMT

This has already been mentioned on some of the other Visio-related blogs, but I wanted to make sure that people are aware of the Visio Conference 2008, taking place here in Redmond in February of next year.

The last conference (held in February 2006) was a huge success, with some of the most favorable customer feedback I've ever seen. We're expanding this version, including additional sessions focused on end users along with even more sessions for developers and partners.

One interesting tidbit is that we will be giving you a sneak peak at the next version of Visio (creatively codenamed "Visio 14"). This promises to be an absolutely huge release for us, so we'll have a lot to show and discuss.

If you are at all interested in Visio, whether as a customer, partner, or solution integrator, I'd highly recommend making the trip.

Visio Active Directory Topology Diagrammer

wmorein — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:24:00 GMT

One of the most common requests I get from IT users of Visio is for a way to draw out an Active Directory topology map. Visio has Active Directory shapes, but until now it didn't have the ability to actually go out and create a diagram from AD. We've put up a free download that does this -- the Microsoft Visio Active Directory Topology Diagrammer is now available. This runs as a separate application and is installed in the Start menu. Here is a screenshot of the UI:

Exchange Server 2007 Shapes

wmorein — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:00:00 GMT

A download is available on Microsoft.com containing a stencil and template for Exchange Server 2007. If you do Exchange deployment or management this is worth grabbing. It works with Visio 2003 or 2007.

Upcoming webcast

wmorein — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:18:00 GMT

I'll be presenting a webcast on the Data Visualization features in Visio on Tuesday, August 7th. Here is a link to the details and registration information.

Security updates for Visio 2002 and Visio 2003

wmorein — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:54:00 GMT

If you haven't already, make sure that you update any copies of Visio 2002 or 2003 with the security updates that we released last month. If you use Microsoft Update or Office Update (highly recommended) then you will already be updated, but if not you can download the files directly from the following links:

New book -- Visualizing Information with Visio 2007

wmorein — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:58:00 GMT

Somehow I missed the fact that Visualizing Information with Microsoft Office Visio 2007, a new book by David Parker, has been published. I knew that the book was coming out, but somehow the actual release slipped by me. I've had a number of people ask about good books for learning about real world uses of the new data features in Visio 2007, and I highly recommend this book for that reason.

David is one of our most active and insightful MVPs, and he has written a great book that comprehensively covers how to work with data in Visio. One of the best things about the book is that it not only covers the new features, but also has a lot of tips about how to best incorporate earlier product features into your overall solution.

More about launching a Remote Desktop session from a hyperlink

wmorein — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 03:11:00 GMT

A few people have asked me if the remote desktop hyperlink creator is Visio-specific. The answer is no. It creates hyperlinks that can be used anywhere. If you publish your network diagrams using Visio's Save as Web feature it will work there too.

Here's the original post explaining what it is.

(Relatively) New Visio Blog

wmorein — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:39:00 GMT

Our Visio MVPs are in town right now, and that reminded me that I've been remiss in mentioning Chris Roth's Visio Guy blog. Chris did a great presentation on XML at the Visio Conference last year, and has a wealth of other visio knowledge. Make sure to check it out, particularly if you are interested in shape creation.

DXF, DWG & Visio

wmorein — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:18:00 GMT

Now that Visio 2007 is out the door (mostly -- the consumer launch is coming up soon) we are looking at future versions.

Do you ever open, save or use AutoCAD files (DXF/DWG) with Visio? If so, the Visio product team would like to talk to you. Send me a note (use the contact form on the left side of this page) and we'll be in contact.

Thanks,
Bill

Meet a ShapeSheet Function: SETF

wmorein — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 21:39:00 GMT

With this post I'll start a new series designed to give a little more detail behind some of the more interesting ShapeSheet functions.

As the documentation for SETF says, this function is designed to let you set the value for a specific cell in the ShapeSheet from any other cell. This is one of the most powerful tools for creating shapes that have smart behavior without any code.

The Basics

The SETF function takes two parameters: the cell to be changed and the new value for that cell.

To specify the cell to be changed, the best practice is to use the GETREF function. You can also use the cell name you want enclosed by quotation marks, but this is less reliable, particularly when you are doing things across shapes. For instance, if you reference another shape just using quotation marks and then add that shape to a group, the reference will no longer be valid. If you use the GETREF approach, Visio will fix up the references for you automatically. Unless you have very specific needs I'd highly recommend always using GETREF.

The second argument, for the value, can be any Visio formula. One thing to note here is that the formula will be evaluated before being placed in the cell unless you enclose it in quotes. This means that if you place 5+Prop.Cost as the argument, you'll get the evaluated value of that formula placed in the cell (i.e. 7 if Prop.Cost is 2) – a fixed value is inserted. If you want an actual formula to be placed in the cell, you need to enclose it in quotes: "5+Prop.Cost". If you need quotes in your formula (usually for text) you can escape them using double quotes.

Some Example Uses

Changing Multishapes

In the flowchart multishape ("Flowchart Shapes" on the Basic Flowchart shapes stencil) that comes with Visio, SETF is used to let users toggle between shapes using a right click context menu. In the picture below, the four possible states of the shape are shown, with the menu dropped down for one of the shapes.

Each of the menu items is created using an action row in the ShapeSheet:

The action column specifies what should happen when the user clicks on that menu item. In this case, we are setting a scratch cell to a value of 1 through 4, which we then use to drive what geometry is shown.

Doing an Action Just Once

Let's say you want to make sure that a user is given the chance to fill in the Shape Data (formerly Custom Properties) of a shape when it is first dropped on the page, but you don't want to have that Shape Data dialog show up every single time they copy or duplicate that shape as well. To do this, add the following formula to the EventDrop cell in the Events section of the ShapeSheet for the master: =DOCMD(1312)+SETF("EventDrop",0)

When the EventDrop event is triggered (when the shape is first dropped from the stencil). It will pop up the Shape Data dialog (this is what DOCMD(1312) does) and then SETF will set the entire formula for that cell to 0 so that the action is not repeated when the dropped shape is copied. This is one case where you can't use GETREF because of the circular reference, so you will need to quote the cell reference.

This is a great technique that has a lot of possible uses given all the actions you can take by using the ShapeSheet through DoCmd or other formulas.

Choosing Teams in a Bracket

During the NCAA basketball tournament this spring, we put together a bracket that let you pick the team you expected to win each by double clicking on your choice. We then used Data Link and Data Graphics to let you automatically update your diagram and see how you were doing. Green meant that your pick was correct (red was wrong) and the exclamation icon set denoted an upset.

Using double clicking to set the picks was accomplished using SETF. To simplify creating the diagram I set up my SETF formula to pull the first argument (shape/cell to be changed) from a Shape Data item in that shape. This let me just use one master and update the Shape Data for each shape to set up the proper links. Here is the formula I used:

=SETF(Prop.NextGameShape&"!Prop.Pick",""""&Prop.Pick&"""")

The first argument is Prop.NextGameShape&"!Prop.Pick". I'm dynamically pulling the value of a Shape Data cell (Prop.NextGameShape) and then specifying the ShapeSheet cell in that shape that I want to use. The ! is the delimiter between the shape and the cell name.

The second argument will set the formula in that cell to be "Prop.Pick". The two sets of quotes send an escaped quote each, and the & concatenates them with the text I want inserted into the cell (pulled from the "Pick" Shape Data item in the current shape).

A little more complicated, but it gets the job done nicely.

Announcing the Visio Customer Council

wmorein — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 03:06:00 GMT

We're always looking for ways to better understand the needs and concerns of Visio customers. To that end, one of the tools we use is the Visio Customer Council.

Council members are uniquely positioned to have their voices heard by the designers and developers of Visio. Members can provide feedback on proposed features and interact, face-to-face, with the Visio product team. Council members share their views in person, through regular conference calls, and in electronic mail.

There are a limited number of Council member positions, and members serve for a period of one year. We are recruiting for the 2006-2007 council now.

If you are interested in helping shape the next generation of Visio, we'll ask you to:

Participate in monthly conference calls with the product team;
Come to Redmond at least once a year to attend an in-person, two- or three-day Visio Customer Council Symposium;
Review and provide detailed feedback on proposed feature designs;
Install, use, and provide feedback on Visio beta software;
Respond to questions from the product team via phone or e-mail;
Host Visio product team members at your place of business from time to time to understand more about how you and others at your organization use Visio;
Sign a nondisclosure agreement with Microsoft.

Since the readers of this blog are among the most dedicated Visio users, we'd like to give you the opportunity to join the Council. If this sounds like something that would interest you, please contact me by e-mail, and we'll get our Planning group in touch with you.

Visio at the Worldwide Partner Conference

wmorein — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:45:00 GMT

If you are at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2006 in Boston, make sure to head to the Data Visualization session since it will heavily feature Visio solutions. It is happening tomorrow afternoon at 4:

IW008 Scale Up Your Business with Data Visualization

Wednesday, July 12 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, 103

Speaker(s): Sanjay Puri, Margaret Wilson

Track(s): Information Worker Solutions

Based on partner capacity research conducted by Microsoft, Data Visualization represents a $2B+ annual opportunity for system integrator partners worldwide! Customers have business problems that can be effectively addressed through visualization solutions - Adding visualization reduces costs and complexity of solutions - It is easier to create, view and understand data in a visual format Partners can enhance their solutions by adding data visualization capabilities to their solution stack - Drive incremental revenues for your business with little to no additional sales cost - Increase margins because the DV assets that you create can be replicated across solutions - Get started quickly because there is low upfront investment - Make your solutions more compelling and your business more competitive - Leverage the large installed base and millions of existing documents created in Visio & MapPoint, and the vast amount of data stored in Excel, Access and SQL Server.

Make sure to also check out the Visio booth in the Expo hall. We've been working with partners on solutions that do a better job of integrating Visio with BizTalk and you can take a look at some of the working examples of that effort.

Designing the floorplan of a personal 767

wmorein — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:20:00 GMT

I've been following this story with great interest since it first broke in the Wall Street Journal. While I don't currently have a 767, you can never be too prepared. With that in mind, I whipped together a Visio version of the airplane floorplan from the story using the default Home Plan stencil (the nice thing about a plane the size of a 767 is that you can presumably use regular sized home furniture). It was easy to put this together - I just pasted the image from the story into Visio, scaled it appropriately, then used the outline to trace the walls before deleting the image. I also used themes to give it that nice blueprint look.

I was able to give Sergey the California king sized bed he wanted, but through some egregious oversite our templates don't seem to have a hammock master so I couldn't hang any from the ceilings. Hopefully the grand piano I threw in to the back of the plane will make up for the omission.

If you want to customize your own 767, download 767.vsd below. To get the full set of stencils, you need to have Visio 2003 or 2007 Pro but if you just want to move the shapes around Standard will suffice.