Visio has long had a setting called “developer mode” that developers and shape designers can enable in order to surface extra functionality. In previous versions of Visio, enabling developer mode made new items appear in couple of different menus (Chris Roth has a good overview here). With Visio 2010, we have taken advantage of our…
Cross-functional Flowcharts in Visio 2010
For flowcharts that have clearly defined stakeholders and assignments, cross-functional flowcharts are often used. Today, cross-functional flowcharts can span a whole conference room’s wall. The number of swimlanes can grow to five or even ten! At the beginning of the Visio 2010 planning, we heard from our users that it is hard for them to…
Details on Container Behaviors
In our previous post we introduced the Containers feature in Visio 2010 and demonstrated some of their basic capabilities. In this post we’ll look at some additional behaviors of containers. Display Order Typically in Visio the most recently added shape is shown on top of the other shapes on the page. To change this display…
Organizing Diagrams with Containers
As the Visio product team began planning for the Visio 2010 release, we collected a lot of customer drawings. Even though there were many different types of diagrams represented, we found some similarities. We noticed that as diagrams got more complex, users added special shapes to help keep things organized and understandable. Often users drew…
Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010
When creating and maintaining flowcharts, a pain point users suffer from is ensuring that the connectors between shapes look good. Visio introduced the dynamic connector many releases ago to help simplify diagram maintenance. Dynamic connectors in combination with dynamic glue allow Visio to choose the sides of shapes to glue your connectors for the best…
Layout Improvements in Visio 2010
A challenge many users face when building diagrams is getting them to look neat and organized. Visio has included a number of features to help with the placement of shapes for many releases. Some of these are manual and only help when dragging a single shape. Others are automated but often a bit too rigid…
The Office Fluent UI in the Visio 2010 Technical Preview
The Visio 2010 user interface has been completely revamped this release based on the Office Fluent or “Ribbon” UI. The Office Fluent UI represents a dramatic departure from the overloaded menu and toolbar design model of previous Visio releases. Visio’s extensive capabilities are now organized into logical, easy to find groups that help you accomplish…
The New Shapes Window in Visio 2010
The Shapes Window has been redesigned in Visio 2010 to streamline the identification and use of shapes when creating diagrams. We’ve made several enhancements to make it easier to move from the initial "creation" phase to the "editing" phase of working with shapes. In this post, you’ll learn all about the new features and how…
The Getting Started Experience in Visio 2010
One of the first things you’ll notice when you start Visio 2010 is the new getting started screen, which is where you’ll choose a template for the diagram you plan to create. While it’s similar to the “Getting Started with Microsoft Office Visio” screen that greets users of Visio 2007, it’s actually part of the…
More Resources for Visio 2010 and Office 2010
Microsoft Visio 2010 is part of the Office 2010 wave of products. While Visio is sold separately from the applications in the Office suite, we share quite a bit of functionality with these applications. In Visio 2010 you will see the adoption of the Office Fluent User Interface and many other shared capabilities in Office….