Visio and OLE

[jsteph]

Hi all,
I'm new to Visio, I'm using 2003 version. I'm wondering if there is a built-in programming interface. I have some large diagrams that I want to fetch node values and properties from and put them into a database.

Is it possible (without 3rd party tools) to automate this?
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[VisioMVP]

Visio comes with VBA, so you can interrogate a diagram and copy information to another program.

John... Visio MVP - Visio.MVPs.org

 

[jsteph]

John,
Thanks very much, I dug in and found that. My issue now is something that's going to be a more complex, and I'm wondering if you're familiar with a work-standard of doing this sort of thing:

For example, we have a WAN diagram. We have our routers, etc. on it with the A and Z end's diagrammed. However, in code I have no way of knowing that when I'm at Shape.10 that that's the Z-end for our Chicago-north router, for instance. Would something like this need to be done at the time of making the diagram--like a naming convention for the shapes or a text convention to prefix the text in these shapes to denote, ie. that "this shape is the Z-end for chicago-north router", or something?

On that note, I couldn't find a 'properties' for the shapes (I did find Custom Properties, but none exist). Do shapes not have, by default, a Name property that one can edit in order to keep a naming convention to make this type of coding easier? Or does one need to always go in and create the custom properties?
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[VisioMVP]

You can add custom properties to your shape to contain that information. Ypu have full control over the type and content of the custom properties. In Visio 2007, custom properties were renamed to Shape Data.

John... Visio MVP - Visio.MVPs.org