I am power office user and software developer; so I have written a few macros in my time. I have found the visio API to be somewhat complicated.
It seems that the API design tradeoff was for cpu efficiency over usability -- some of us would rejoice if a second, simpler, more intuitive (from an average user's pov) API could be provided for those of us who just want to bang out a macro now and then.
Hi Toaster,
The API starts to get simpler if you understand the ShapeSheet--which isn't simple.
You can do a huge number of things once you understand that you need to get into the cells of a shape, ie:
shp.Cells("Width").ResultIU = 2.5
shp.Cells("User.myData").FormulaForce = "" & "One;Two;Three" & ""
But I agree with you: a programmer has to go to deep to get Visio to do anything.
It would be nice to have simpler, more intuitive operations like shp.FillColor = Colors.Red or shp.TextBehavior = SizeWithShapeHeight, etc.
Thanks, I will take a closer look at ShapeSheet next time I roll up my sleeves to write a macro.
Sometimes the right starting point can make a big difference. :)