Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack Tools and Samples
Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack Samples and Tools Home
Visio 2003 DSP home

(Please see release notes at bottom of page.)

Overview

This page provides a gateway to all tools and samples available for use with Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack. 

This page organizes the available tools and samples according to the chapter of the book to which they are most pertinent. As an alternative to using this page, you can simply use Windows Explorer to browse the V2003DSP directories and view the index.htm files in each one.

Chapter Chapter Title Tools 
(see table below)
Page Sample or additional material Link to Detail Page
Part 1 Overview Of The Visio Development Environment        
1 Introduction        
2 Overview of Visio Territory        
3 A Plan For Coping        
Part 2 Visio Structural Breakdowns        
4 Visio Object Model        
5 ShapeSheet Structure and Functions Introduction        
Part 3 Visio Functional Areas In Depth        
6 Visio Files: Drawings, Stencils, Templates XML Browser
VisioToXML
     
7 Shapes   84 HelloWorld.vsd ch07_HelloWorld
8 Shape Geometry GeoHelper 100 ArcTo, Ellipse ch08_ShapeGeometry
      106 NURBS ch08_ShapeGeometry
      115 Ink ch08_ShapeGeometry
9 Masters and Shapes Inheritance Browser      
10 ShapeSheet Mastery   127... ShapeSheet dependency samples ch10_ShapeSheetMastery
      134... SetAtRef samples ch10_ShapeSheetMastery
11 All Things Text   147 Fig11-1, using Characters ch11_Text
      150 Making Text Fit ch11_Text
      151 Text Clipping ch11_Text
      155 Comments ch11_Text
12 Composite Shapes Using Groups   165...   ch12_CompositeShapes
13 Connectors, Routing and Layout   191   ch13_ConnectorsRoutingLayout
14 Glue and Connects ConnPtScrewDriver 205    
      211 Connector-sensitive conn pts ch14_GlueAndConnects
15 Formatting Via Masters and Styles Inheritance Browser      
16 Line and Fill Patterns and Line Ends        
17 Documents, Pages, Layers and Markup   235 Page list ch17_DocsPagesLayers
      238 Markup sample ch17_DocsPagesLayers
Part 4 Building Visio Solutions        
18 Building Solutions: Introduction        
19 Menus, Toolbars, Accelerators UIObject Browser
CommandBars Browser
279 Adding UI Elements
Minimal UI
 UI.vdx
ch19_UserInterface
20 Events and Other Notifications Events Browser 292 QueueMarkerEvent examples ch20_EventsAndNotifications
      296 Simple WithEvents ch20_EventsAndNotifications
      298 WithEvent class ch20_EventsAndNotifications
      305 Simple Event Sink ch20_EventsAndNotifications
      305 Event Sink, VSL version ch20_VBVSL_EventSink
      306 Event Sink with Forwarding ch20_EventsAndNotifications
      309 Event Sink with filters ch20_EventsAndNotifications
21 VBA-Based Solutions     General ch21_VBAGeneral
      323 Accessing lines of code ch21_VBAGeneral
22 Visio Solution Library Solutions: VSLs and Addons VBVSL Adapter Component
VisBin Browser
VisioBin Delete
All General VBVSL installation instuctions.
 
VBVSLNotes
      331 VBVSL_Min ch22_VBVSL_Minimal
      Supplemental VBVSL Two Addons ch22_VBVSL_TwoAddons
      341 .NET version (in progress, check website)
23 Exe and Out-of-Process Solutions   346 ReflectArgs VB/ch23_Exes
      347 .NET version CSharp/ch23_Exes
24 COM Addin Solutions        
25 Solution Window Management   355   ch25_WindowAlts
26 Visio ActiveX Drawing Control   369 C#  example CShape/ch26_VisioDrawingControl
      369 VB example VB/ch26_VisioDrawingControl
27 ShapeSheet Service Addons   379   ch27_DemoShapeServices

 

28 Visio and XML XML Browser
VisioToXML
397   ch28_XML
29 IDataObject and Shape Drag-and-Drop
Drag-and-Drop Spy,
ShapeSheet Developer Helper
413 ReplaceStencil01.vsd ch29_IDataObjectDragDrop
      414, 416 C# version ch29_IDataObjectDragDrop
    DAVBDragDropSupport.dll 417 VB version ch29_DragNDrop
30 Visio and ActiveX   424 ActiveX control on drawing fires VBA ch30_ActiveX
      425 Foreign docs embedded in Visio ch30_ActiveX
      426 ActiveX shape in Visio ch30_ActiveXShape
31 Animation   430 Manual ch31_Animation
      431 Accident Scene ch31_Animation
      433 Following a path ch31_Animation
32 Export and Bitmap Topics   440 Swappable bitmap ch32_BitmapAndExport
      441 Bitmap export ch32_BitmapAndExport, also VBCommon
      442 Preview picture, C# CSharp/ch32_DocPreview
      442 Preview picture, VB6 VB/ch32_DocPreview
33 Some Utilitarian Odds and Ends   446 VisXData ch33_UtilityTechniques
      448 Undo ch33_UtilityTechniques
      450 Version info ch33_UtilityTechniques
34 Some Deployment Notes   455 Article on Code Signing (In process, awaiting info from MS)
35 Internationalization Features        
Part 5 Browsable Reference to Visio Structure         
36 ShapeSheet Section-Row-Cell Structure       See Reference Material below
37 ShapeSheet Functions       See Reference Material below
38 Visio Objects, Properties and Methods       See Reference Material below
39 Events Table       See Reference Material below
           

Tools and Components Listing

Tool/Link Description For Visio Version [1] Link or Status
Browsers for Visio Internal State      
CommandBar Browser Shows snapshot of Visio's Application.CommandBar data. 2002+ CommandBarBrowser
UIObject Browser Shows snapshot of Visio's UIObject-based user-interface data. 2000+ UIObjectBrowser
Cell Inheritance Browser Shows the master and style cells from which a shape's cells inherit their formulas and values. 2002+ VisioInhBrowser
Event Browser Snapshot of Events in EventList collections of Visio's objects 2002+ VisioEventBrowser
ShapeSheet Browser Alternative view of ShapeSheet, suited to copy, paste, reformat and print 2002+ ShapeSheet
Doc, Page, Window overview Quick display of top-level Document, Page and Window objects 2002+ DocPgWin
       
Other Browsers and Tools      
XML Browser Convenient browser for "XML for Visio" files 2002+ XMLBrowse
Drag-and-Drop Spy Shows the kind of data that an application can provide to the drag-and-drop mechanism, and also  the interaction when dragging data into an application. Any GWDragDropSpy

 

Connection-point Screwdriver Shape which functions as a tool for adjusting angle and in/out-ness of gendered connection points. 2003 DirnConnScrewdriver
Geometry Helper Browser exposes PolyLine and NURBS geometry 2000+ GeoHelper

 

ShapeSheet Developer Helper Two separate developer-oriented helpers:
1) Allows reading, writing and editing shape data in VDX (XML) format
2) Allows re-ordering ShapeSheet rows in sections having nameable rows.
2003 SSDevHelper
Visio-to-XML Mass Converter Automates Visio to convert entire directories-full of Visio files to XML format. 2002+ VisioToXML
Visio.bin Viewer Allows viewing contents of visio.bin file up to 2002 VisBinBrowser
Visio.bin (and contents.dat) deleter Convenient way to delete visio.bin when you or installer needs to force Visio to resurvey VSLs 2000+ VisBinDel

 

Typelib registration aid Substitute for Windows RegSvr -- can register VSL files. n/a TypeLibReg
Typelib lister and unregistration aid Lists type libraries currently registered, allows easy unregistration. n/a TypeLibUnreg

 

       
Components      
VBVSL components Components for creating VSLs using VB6 2000+ VBVSL
NETVSL Component Components for creating a VSL using VS.NET 2002+ (in progress)
DAVSL_Anim.vsl Animation Component 2000+ DAVSL_Anim
DAKbdEventLib ActiveX component provides a way to queue keyboard events (similar to SendKeys but avoids some issues). Particularly useful for controlling VIsio's SaveAs bitmap process.   DAKbdEventLib
DAVBDragDropSupport.dll ActiveX component makes drag and drop easier for VB/VBA 2000+ VBCommon
       
Notes      
[1] Visio Version: Some tools require at least a specific version of Visio to function. In some case the tool will work with a lower version but I haven't tested it and haven't thought through whether it should work.
   

Reference Materials

Item Description Link or Status
Additional Documentation    
Reference Chapters in PDF form PDF version of Chapters 36 through 39, including a complete version of "Visio Objects, Properties and Methods"  Available separately
Article on Code Signing Supplement for Chapter 34 "Some Deployment Notes" describing code signing and detailing how to apply it. In process.
     

Notes and Errata

See separate page of Notes and Errata at this book's support site: Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack Home

Release Notes

Version Date Summary Comments
3.0.1 2005-02-28 Updated codesign cert The main update in this release is that all tools, and the VBVSL Adapter vsl (and copies used for VBVSL projects) have now been signed with a newer codesigning certificate, using codesign's -t option to avoid expiry of the certification.

If you are running Visio security at medium, when Visio prompts you with security dialog, it should offer the option to "always trust code from Diagramantics".. . after accepting this you should not see more such dialogs from the tools supplied in this release.

If you are running Visio at low security, you probably aren't aware of this issue. If you are running Visoi at high security, then Visio will probably not present you with the dialog with the option to "always trust", but instead fails silently. Not sure what to do at that point... "exercise for reader" I guess!.

Note On Other Website Content:
-- embellishments and corrections to the text posted
-- .NET version of the VBVSL adapter.
-- Article on code-signing

3.0.0 2003-10-29 Initial Release A few items as noted in the tables above are either available separately, or will be in the near future. Please check this books support site for details:  Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack Home 
  __________    

Contact

If you have comments or criticisms, please email them to v11dsp@diagramantics.com.  While I can't promise a personal reply to all email, I will watch for problem reports, attempt to track down solutions and incorporate the answers into this book's support pages.


Article Created: 2003-09-01  Last edit: Last edit: 05-02-28 Graham Wideman
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