Development

Visio Minions SmartShape Concept

June 16, 2015 By Visio Guy 5 Comments

Today I had the idea to make a Minions Visio SmartShape. I was primarily interested in controlling eye movement using ShapeSheet techniques.

As a responsible adult, I probably don’t (shouldn’t) have the time to finish it properly. But I thought I’d make this video to show off some capabilities and point out general concepts that might help to make useful SmartShapes.

ShapeSheet through the Ages

September 17, 2014 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

This week on the Visio History Channel…

If you enjoyed yesterday’s walk down memory lane, and you lean toward the technical/programmer side, then you might enjoy this fluff piece–a look at the evolution of the ShapeSheet.

3-Label Dynamic Connector: Input Methods

April 24, 2014 By Visio Guy 44 Comments

I’ve been working on a three-label, Visio dynamic connector and thought I’d share some of my design thoughts with you.

Fit All Pages to Window in a Visio Document

April 13, 2011 By Visio Guy 13 Comments

If you create Visio documents with lots of pages, you probably like to quickly flip through all of them to check for visual consistency.

But if each page has been zoomed or panned, it can be frustrating to have to click Fit to Window for each page.

But with a little macro code, you can make your life a lot easier!

Data-linking Problem with 64-Bit Visio

December 22, 2010 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

I ran into a problem linking Visio shapes to Excel data the other day. If you are running 64-bit versions of Windows and Microsoft Office, you might run into the same problem.

Fortunately, the solution was quite easy!

New Article about Validation Rules in Visio 2010

October 21, 2010 By Visio Guy Leave a Comment

What if you could click a button and have Visio notify you if a drawing was incorrect, had errors, or did not follow your company’s standards?

Visio 2010 offers this capability, and more information is coming out on how to use validation and develop custom rules every day!

Sample Chapter for Rules & Validation Book

July 21, 2010 By Visio Guy 2 Comments

You might have heard about David Parker’s new book about Visio 2010 Premium’s Rules and Validation for process diagramming.

We’ve just discovered that there’s a free chapter available online, so you can kick the tires before you buy!

New Book: Visio 2010 Rules, Validation & Business Process Diagramming

July 19, 2010 By Visio Guy 2 Comments

Visio 2010 Premium introduces powerful mechanisms for validating diagrams to insure graphical and semantic correctness. Not only does this feature allow end-users to check and correct their diagrams, it enables developers to create custom rule sets to validate corporate- or discipline-specific diagrams.

David Parker’s new book: Microsoft Visio 2010 Business Process Diagramming and Validation explains Visio diagram validation, the APIs behind it, and helps you to build tools to make it all easier!

Add Spice to Your Visio Skills With Randomization!

July 16, 2010 By Visio Guy 2 Comments

the-matrix

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the ShapeSheet is. You have to see it for yourself.

Visio SmartShapes can be so much more than just clip-art. This is because the ShapeSheet allows shapes to behave in intelligent ways, carry data and react to that data.

One under-used, little-known function is RAND(), which allows you to add randomness to your drawings. Randomness can not only be “neat-o”, but also useful. Come in and see why!