Creating Visio Add-ins with VSTO 2005 SE

Introduction On November 2006, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Office System, also known as VSTO 2005 SE (Second Edition). Developers have long been able to create custom add-ins for Visio. With VSTO 2005 SE, developers are now able to create VSTO add-ins for Visio. You might be wondering, “Why should I…


Visio 2007 SDK

The Visio 2007 SDK available for all of you to try out. Here are a few new things in Visio 2007 SDK: Visio add-in or add-on wizard for Visual Studio 2005 Visio Code Samples Library — the old Code Librarian interface has finally been retired! New code samples in the Visio Code Samples Library New…


Creating Visio Add-Ins/Add-ons with Visual Studio 2005

Some of you have discovered that the Visio Add-in or Add-on Wizard does not work in Visual Studio 2005. Bill Morein, a Program Manager on the Visio team, posted a great article on his blog that describes how to use the Shared Add-in Wizard to create a Visio Add-in. If you want to create an Add-on,…


Visio Connector for MBSA article and source code

Visimation, one of our Gold Certified partners, has published an article on the Visio Connector for MBSA. Even more exciting is that they posted the full source code on GotDotNet! Here are all links: Custom UI items appear when a custom shape is added to a page in Visio 2003: This is the first article…


Dragging-and-dropping from Custom Anchor Bar Windows

I think the Visio application environment is pretty impressive because of all the things you can do to customize the user interface. There are not very many apps out there that will let you add your own custom windows. Visio allows developers to do just that by enabling you to add Windows Forms as anchor…


Visio Connector for MBSA

Visio 2003 continues to be an essential application in the IT professional’s toolbox. It allows you to create network diagrams, server rack diagrams, and Web site maps. Maintaining a secure network is also a top concern for IT professionals. With that in mind, Microsoft will be releasing a free utility that will help IT professionals…


Automating the Timeline Shapes: Part 2

My good buddy Bill (no, not G) ran into an oddity when trying to automate the timeline shape. After you drop a timeline master to the page and set the begin-and-end dates, the time scale markers do not get updated. The labels for the begin-and-end dates are updated correctly. When you drop a milestone marker…


Automating the Timeline Shapes: How many inches are in November?

Like many of the out-of-the-box shapes in Microsoft Office Visio 2003, the Timeline shapes are quite snazzy. No wonder people like to use the “Import Timeline Data…” feature (under the Timeline menu) to display major milestones from a Microsoft Project plan file. “But what about Project Server data,” you might ask? Well, leave it to…


Custom Property Quirk in SaveAsWeb

One of our keen partners from the UK pointed out a slight quirk with the SaveAsWeb feature. Suppose you have a shape with a numeric custom property. If you give 0 as the value and save the drawing as a web page, the custom property pane in the browser displays a blank value. If you specify…


IOleCommandTarget Issues

I know many of you have run into some issues when using the Visio ActiveX control’s IOleCommandTarget interface. This interface is used to invoke Visio menu functionaility from your own .NET winform menu items. Mark talks a little bit about it in his excellent article. I’ve talked to some of you personally already about IOleCommandTarget….