Dev Luv: Hotfix for Control Developers

If you’re developing on the Visio 2003 ActiveX control, please install this hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;884592 It fixes a nasty page fault problem in the control. Developers and end users of the control solutions should install this hotfix.   Thanks, Mai-lan  

Dev Luv: Webcast on Programming Visio

I’m doing a webcast tomorrow called “Programming the Visio Development Platform” if you want to check it out. You can register for it at: http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032269605%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e   The webcast starts on Friday, March 04, 2005, 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada). If you miss it, the recording will be available in 24 hours after the webcast…

Visio Integration With MS Products: Graphical “Strategy Maps” for Balanced Scorecard

There is a whole methodology called “Balanced Scorecard” which focuses on providing access to metrics on quality, customer satisfaction, and other key business categories for success. Balanced Scorecard hinges on the axiom that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it.”  The strategy map is an important part of communicating and tracking the organization…

Visio Integration with MS Products: Export Topology to Visio From MOM Server

The customer base for the Microsoft Operations Server (MOM) overlaps pretty significantly with Visio’s customer base. Most of the IT professional desktops that use MOM have Visio installed for network diagramming, database modeling, and process diagrams. (The MOM team looked at using the Visio ActiveX drawing control in this release but couldn’t use it because,…

Dev Luv: Visio –> SVG –> XAML

I’ve gotten some questions about Visio’s ability to import or export XAML-based graphics files.  Visio can’t do this today but you can use Visio 2003’s SVG functionality to achieve the same goal. You can save a Visio diagram out as SVG and then use a SVG to XAML converter to convert the Visio-generated SVG to XAML….

Get Better at Visio Using Free MS Online Tutorials

Do you struggle with getting your shapes just right in your Visio diagrams? Do you have limited time and interest for going through a Visio user book? Here’s an easy way to update your Visio knowledge: take free online Microsoft tutorials that introduce you to Visio. This is cool content that a lot of Visio…

Dev Luv: Visio 2003 Drawing Control in Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1

The Visio 2003 Drawing Control does not work in the Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. We’ve done some testing on more recent builds of the VS 2005 bits (post-beta 1 bits), and the control does work in the more recent builds.   This will be fixed by Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 and of course…

Dev Luv: Distributing Custom Visio Stencils

Visio 2003 lets developers integrate their Visio content installation with a Windows Installer application. There are publish component table entries that can be added to MSI files to tell Visio about new Visio content (stencils, templates and add-ons).  We added support for publish component table entries in Visio 2003; see this article for more information. All…

Viewing Visio Files

When I gave my talk at the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference, I was surprised how few folks had heard about the Visio Viewer. Visio has shipped a free viewer for the last two releases of the product. You can download a Visio Viewer for Visio 2003 and a Vsio Viewer for Visio 2002. The…