Archives for January 2011
Using Character Map Symbols as Data Graphic Icons
I attended the ninth DDD on Saturday (see http://developerdeveloperdeveloper.com/ ), and, as usual, there were many interesting presentations. Sam Bourton extolled the virtues of Microsoft Expression Blend for WPF and Silverlight developers (NOT designers note!), and he showed a neat trick to create icons quickly by using Wingding symbols. Basically, he created a text block in Blend, inserted a symbol from one of the three Wingding fonts character maps, then converted the symbol to a path. It struck me that we could do a similar trick in Visio to create Data Graphic Icon Sets cheaply … so here goes…..
In this example, I am using a Process shape from the Basic Flowchart stencil because it has a Status Shape Data row that is defined as a choice from six different values (the first value is an empty text string).
Choice of Values for Status Shape Data row
[Read more…] about Using Character Map Symbols as Data Graphic IconsCongrats to another Visio chap in the UK
Those of you who use the Microsoft Office and TechNet Forums may have noticed that I don’t answer too many questions there. Firstly, this is because I am normally beaten to it by John Marshall (Canada), Al Edlund (USA), or Paul Herber (UK). Well, the first two are Microsoft MVP’s for Visio (like me), but Paul has just achieved something that most MVP’s have not … he has been awarded a second medal for his activity on the Visio forums (John Marshall was the first I believe). So, congratulations to Paul!
The second reason is that I just don’t find them as easy to use as the old newsgroups that Microsoft used to host. I know that there were good reasons for the transition, but I look forward to them being improved – and Visio getting it’s own forum, rather than just being a filter on other Office products!
The Visio forums can be found at:
Microsoft Office for Business Users: Visio, Project, InfoPath, and Access : http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/addbuz/threads?filter=alltypes%2cmf%3aa094743e-91c5-4bb1-a29f-87fdc36790ce
Visio General Questions and Answers for IT Professionals : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/visiogeneral/threads
Paul Herber has just started a Visio blog too : http://www.paulherber.co.uk/articles/visio-articles/
Microsoft Monday at Packt Publishing
My latest book, which is about validating diagrams in Visio 2010 ( https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-visio-2010-business-process-diagramming/book ) was published by Packt Publishing last year.
You can get 25% off during January, if you buy more than one Microsoft book from them. Please read the details at https://www.packtpub.com/article/microsoft-books .