My last post was only yesterday, when I released celMaker 2 for Visio 2007 and Excel 2007, but I have already had some feedback from my fellow Visio MVP, John Goldsmith. He found a couple of “bugs” and suggested an improvement, so they have all been implemented.
Archives for April 2009
Introducing celMaker 2
I was recently asked to provide a new version of celMaker that works with Visio 2007 and Excel 2007, so I got my old VB6 code out of SourceSafe and upgraded it so that I could run it on my Vista 64 laptop too. I also decided that I would release this version to the public as freeware because I have added no new features.So, what is celMaker? And where can you download it?
Last one first … you can download it from here : http://www.bvisual.net/products/celMaker/publish.htm (under review)
Most Visio users will have the components, so you can just click the Launch link.
1. Introduction
celMaker is a developer(ish) tool for Visio which allows the most often used sections of a Visio ShapeSheet to be copied into an Excel spreadsheet, or from an Excel spreadsheet onto a Visio master.
This means that the Visio Shape designer can create one master with its Shape Data (nee Custom Properties), User Cells, Actions, Smart Tags, Controls and Connection Points, and then save this to an Excel spreadsheet for backup, verification, discussions, documentation or transfer to another Master.
The Excel spreadsheet can be created manually or by reverse engineering existing Visio masters.
celMaker is provided as a stand alone executable that requires both Visio and Excel to be running, and can be used for many different types of diagram projects.
Impending SP2 for Visio 2007
All programs have bugs, but some bugs are more annoying than others. One such bug is the often missing ribbon UI in Excel when you generate a report from Visio. So, I was delighted when the Visio team informed me of the impending service pack 2 for Microsoft Office Visio 2007, and found that it includes a fix for this problem: ttp://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx
So, what is this bug? Well, I often run reports straight from Visio using the rudimentary report writer:
Visio in XPS and Interesting Microsoft Office Labs Projects
For the past two years, I have been adding XAML-based projects to my collection, alongside the normal Visio libraries and automation code that I normally produce. The reason is quite simple : both environments have the ability of linking vector graphics and data together in an exciting, interactive and controllable way. There is a certain smartness to both with the ability to binding data to graphical appearance. XAML seems to be present in all of Microsoft’s graphic products, in the form of WPF, Silverlight .and Xps. Now, we know that there are great things to come viz-a-viz Visio and XAML in the next version, and there is Saveen Reddy,s excellent Visio Export to XAML project on CodePlex ( https://www.openhub.net/p/VisioExportToXAML ), but most people do not realise that Xps is XAML, but compressed.