A recent Visio newsgroup post asked about customizing the output files from Visio's Save As Web feature. This rang a bell in the ol' noggin, and I went searching for an old demo that exported a customized html page, with pop-up menus that displayed Custom Property (Shape Data) information.

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If you are using Microsoft Forefront Client Security, and are documenting it in your Visio network diagrams, or if you dig Visio's new Data Graphics features, or simply like brightly-colored, shiny new Visio shapes and then we've got an article and a download for you!

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Whether you are a developer creating a Visio-based solution, or are a competent Visio user, David Parker’s excellent offering will help you push Visio 2007 to new limits!

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So we've had this experimental Visio drawing containing crude attempts at 3D states laying around since 1993. But we only had three states: Washington, Oregon and California. Well after a few years, a few new Visio features, and some wisdom gained, we've finally gotten off our butts and written a little code that helped us produce something a little more useful: an entire map of the USA, where each shape can be extruded into the vertical! Read the rest of this entry »

In this article, we share with you a dimension line SmartShape that can be calibrated to a scale on an imported image, and be subsequently used to measure distances in that space.

Since Visio is adept at importing images in a variety of formats, it can be a great time savings to start with an image as a background or basis for a diagram that you wish to produce. There are many scenarios where the imported art represents a scaled drawing, be it a map, a floor plan, or some other architectural drawing. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are developing solutions for Visio, then you've probably dabbled with VB code in Visio's Visual Basic for Applications editor. If you've been in the industry as long as I have, then you know that VB means Visual Basic. Period. End of story. But if you happen to also be from Australia, then it's a different story...

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As we travel around the world, we're looking at maps every single day. And being a Visio Guy, this naturally causes ideas to formulate in the old noggin. You may have seen and enjoyed the various map downloads from Visio Guy, but today, we've got something a little bit different.

I hope you'll get a kick out of today's SmartShape: the Multi-Earth Shape. This little bugger lets you choose four views and four color schemes, all with a click of the mouse!

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One of the areas in which Visio particularly shines is that of Sales Force Automation. With Visio, a rep can sit on-site with a customer, and visually spec out a system or an installation. The components in the Visio schematic can be linked to real product-data, and can be analyzed via code to generate bills-of-material and reports automatically.

On MSDN, I recently uncovered "oldie but goody" demo that shows off these capabilities. I created it for Visio 5.0, while I still worked for Visio Corp, and it still works with Visio 2003! The demo illustrates how a fictitious candy-manufacturing line might be laid out. Custom shapes represent general classes of equipment, and database links behind the shapes specify real-world items. With the click of a button, a Bill of Materials, is generated in an embedded Excel spreadsheet, sitting right on the page!

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Do you need people shapes to spruce up those Org-charts, workflow diagrams, or marketing slides? Are you tired of Visio's outdated or distracting-and-overly-3D shapes? Then you've come to the right place!

Today Visio Guy offers its own version of the The Human Form. A subtly shaded, Fisher-Price-looking, person-pawn for your downloading pleasure. And of course, they have a few extra smart features just to sweeten the deal...

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This morning I was thumbing through one of Edward R. Tufte's books, and I got this idea for a "12-month bar shape" -- a shape that shows vertical bars for each month of the year, in a compact, easy-to-read format. My original thought was that it would make a perfect Visio 2007 Data Graphic!

So, without thinking, planning, or researching, I plunged ahead creating the details of the shape, and then realized that making a Data Graphic is more complicated than I thought. Ugh!

Nevertheless, I've created a shape, which displays bar-graphics for 12 months of the year, and which links to external data. Perhaps you'll find it useful!

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Well, it's been a while since any map-drawings have found their way to the Visio Guy blog-bits. And, judging by the messages I've been reading in the newsgroups, as well as personally receiving, there are a few more maps that you folks would like to see.

Since Mrs. Visio Guy and I are spending this year traveling around the world, it seemed appropriate that we offer up a map of the world for you to download!

So here we have it: in between hikes through rainforests, sky-diving adventures, and dolphin-watching tours, I've managed to produce a Visio drawing that shows all the countries of the world.

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Many many years ago, when I worked at Visio Corporation, one of my projects was to create the dimension line shapes that you can still find to this day under File > Shapes > Visio Extras > Dimensioning - Architectural or Engineering.

After all the sweat and tears that went in to creating them, I came to affectionately call them: My Babies. In fact, I still claim them as dependants every April 15th, and will soon be searching for a suitable university for them to attend.

So when a forum question appears regarding Visio's dimension lines, I'm naturally all ears. Recently, someone made an inquiry in the Visio general newsgroup about a dimension line that could display Rack Units...

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Well folks, the Missus and I have been traveling New Zealand's south island for the past few weeks, and I've finally found the time get online and offer up a new post.

The land is beautiful down here, and folks are very conscious of the environment. In the news, there's been lots of talk about generating power using the energy stored in ocean's waves and tidal flows. On the long train ride from Auckland to Wellington, I had a conversation with a guy about a simple power generator that works by anchoring a buoy to the ocean floor, and using the up-and-down motion caused by floating to generate electricity.

I had the idea to create a Visio diagram to illustrate how such a wave generator might work. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft has published a brand-spanking-new set of Visio shapes for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. You can download the stencil for free from Microsoft's web-site and immediately get to work planning your next Exchange deployment. You'll also amaze your co-workers with your unmatched graphic-abilities and non-boring PowerPoint slides!

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Zeus Technology produces software and hardware for advanced traffic management and application acceleration. If you're working with Zeus' products, you'll probably want to map out your system from time to time.

Well, the guys that put together the ZXTM KnowledgeHub blog have just published a set of 3D network shapes for Zeus' ZXTM appliances. They have the look-and-feel of the other 3D network shapes that ship with Visio 2003 and are nicely crafted. Go have a look...here!

Good work, KnowledgeHub Team!

Through the VGOBN (Visio Good Ol' Boys Network) I recently received a finely-crafted set of Audio-Visual Shapes that you can use to layout your home theater wiring projects. The set is comprised of various terminal connectors, such as RCA Audio and RCA Video terminals, as well as various shapes for the back-plate and functional groups.

Many thanks to Tom Underhill for these shapes. Tom is a very smart engineer who used to work for Visio Corporation, and now does incredible things for Microsoft. You are welcome to send Tom praise and comments at "t-under-hill@g-mail.com" but remove all three of the hyphens first.

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Arno Nel has published links to a really cool set of Visio drawings that relate to Microsoft SharePoint on his blog: Arno Nel 2.0 - The Information Worker. The diagrams illustrate models, scenarios, and flowcharts for planning, designing and deploying SharePoint installations.

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December is here and Christmas is near! What better way to celebrate than with your very own Visio Advent Calendar!

I've created a Visio file that's full of all sorts of goodies. Just open the file every day from now until December 25th and you'll get a new visual, Visio treat!

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Another question popped up on the newsgroup forums today asking about making polygon shapes in Visio. This triggered a neuron, and I was off like a flash to perform a search of my ...\Visio directory.

Sure enough, I found "PolygonMaker 2002.vsd", which I have prettied-up for presentation to you today...

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If you're an IBM ThinkPad fanatic like me and the folks over at forum.thinkpads.com -- or used to be before Lenovo removed the red stripes from the buttons -- then you'll appreciate having a real laptop shape for your diagrams.

I've created a fully over-drawn ThinkPad laptop Visio network shape that's sure to bloat your file sizes, but look really cool on your 2400dpi color laser printer. It's got all the normal features of Visio's network shapes: a whole slew of custom properties and text that can be moved via a little, yellow control handle.

Hope you enjoy it!

Today's post presents you with a Consumer Reports style ratings shape. The shape is what is traditionally referred to as a multi-shape. It has five states that allow you to graphically represent the quality of a particular characteristic. Consumer Reports names the states: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, or Unacceptable. In our shape you can configure the names to your liking.

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Perhaps you have noticed that this web site is mainly devoted to custom Visio shapes and information about developing Visio solutions. But if you've seen the Snowflake Generator or the CD Jewel Case Template, you know that we're not just about work and no play.

I've created a new Visio Art Page. You can find a link to it at the top of every page on this site, as it is now a standing feature of Visio Guy. Hope you enjoy!

So Steve popped up on MSN Messenger a few months ago and told me he needed a USB Stick shape that matched the cool 3D network shapes in Visio 2003.

Of course this was annoying -- what am I? The Visio Guy? But then I remembered how he manages to save me big $$$ on my ThinkPads. And since I was chatting with him on a T43p, I figured it was the least I could do

Steve has enjoyed a competitive advantage -- being the only person with this shape for many months -- but now his patent has run out and I'm sharing it with you!

(Download UsbStick.zip)

If you use Visio for CAD-like purposes, you might need to make revisions or "AS-BUILT" modifications to your drawings from time to time. Often this is shown by drawing a squiggly cloud, or bubble, around the portion of the drawing that has been modified.

I've created three shapes for doing this that you can download here.

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Well folks, it's snowing here at Visio Guy Headquartes in Munich! So I guess it's time to start thinking winter after all. And that's just what this article and download are all about: Winter! Visio and Winter! Visio and Winter and Snowflakes!

So let's forget about BPM, Org Charts and Network Diagrams for a while, and hark back to the winters of our youth, when we'd busily be folding paper and cutting away triangular bits, in the mad pursuit to decorate our windows with paper snowflakes.

I've coddled together a little tutorial that shows you how to use Visio's Fragment, Union, Combine and Trim functions to create snowflakes -- “ just like you did back in kindergarten! And the download contains some Visual Basic for Applications code to help you "do the unfolding" automatically!

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If you just went out and bought yourself a color laser printer, like I did, then you might be itching to create a bunch of CD Jewel Cases in living color!

And since you're already a Visio pro, there's no sense in installing and learning another application, because you can download a Visio CD Jewel Case Template right here!

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Nia hao ma and g'day mates! This week, we've got a Map of Asia & Australia for you to download. This complements the Map of North America, Map of Europe, and Map of Central & South America that we've offered you earlier.

(Download map_AsiaAustralia.zip)

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Ola Visio Amigos! Following on the heels of the Map of Europe and the Map of North America, this week brings us a map of South & Central America, that you can download here. Some of the islands of the Carribean are also included.

As usual, the color treatment and text have been added for your convenience!

(Download map_SouthCentralAmerica.zip)

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Ever need a spiral shape? I just found one buried on my hard-drive -- something I whipped up years ago, and modified last year. You can download it here.

The download consists of one Visio drawing file (.vsd). This file contains VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macro-code that generates the spirals. You'll need to allow this code to run in order to create spirals.

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We've got more New & Improved Visio SmartShapes for you today! Today's download contains the new flavors of the marketing shapes: Triangle & 3-D pyramid. The new shapes allow you to show up to 10 or 20 levels, have improved usability and automatic coloring.

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How many of you remember waaay back to Visio 2000, when you could manipulate the type and direction of connection points via nifty UI handles? Well, that functionality was removed from Visio, but I've created a free tool that will give it back to you! Using a custom master shape and Visual Basic for Applications code, you can quickly get your 2D connection points in order!

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Visio users have been requesting the ability to add more than five stinking arrows to the Circular Arrow shape. This shape, which comes with Visio, is found in Charts and Graphs > Marketing Diagrams stencil.

Today's download offers an improved version of this shape. It allows you to add up to 20 arrows, automatically color them, and choose from 3 arrowhead styles!

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A few weeks ago, I uploaded the map of Europe Visio diagram. This file provided convenient access to all the shapes of Europe, all neatly arranged relative to one another, living in harmony with peace and unity. Alle Menschen werden Brüder... Today we have the same pain-free (ie: no Shape Search) treatment for North America.

AND, we finally have a short post from the VisioGuy!

(Download map_northamerica.zip)

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Every once in a while, folks ask about map shapes in Visio. Does Visio have countries and continents? Yes? Well, where on earth (pun intended) are they?

Visio has had map shapes for a long time, but it has become increasingly difficult to find them. First, some of the shapes got moved into the shape database. That means they are no longer in a stencil, but must be found by running a Shape Search. And we all know that search can be less than perfect at times.

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