Migration Upgrade advice

Started by rob31, May 29, 2017, 12:33:32 PM

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rob31

Hello,

I wonder if somebody here can help me.

A little background first - not necessarily relevant to the problem. I have a fairly large Visio 'application' that was written about 13 years ago for Visio 2003. There is a lot of VBA code in the stencil that performs actions on diagrams. The application was migrated to Visio 2007 about 10 years ago without problem. Since then, the code has evolved but I have not changed the Visio version. This Visio application is part of a larger system, it takes the data in the diagrams and converts them to a format that is read by other applications. The system is working fine, but the customer is now interested in upgrading the version of Visio that is used by the system (basically the Office 2007 support is ending).

About 5 years ago, I briefly looked at migrating to Visio 2010, but the customer was not interested in paying for this back then. The Visio 2007 VBA code seemed to basically run in Visio 2010, but there were a few problems, IIRC.

Personally, I think that it would be prudent to upgrade to the latest Visio version (2016). However, I have no idea about the major differences between Visio 2007 and Visio 2016. The code in the stencil is VBA 6.5. The shapes on the diagrams have custom properties that are accessed by the VBA code.

Have there been major evolutions in Visio or VBA that will cause big problems for a jump from 2007 to 2016? Is there any site that lists the major changes in VBA or Visio? Have the jumps to 2013 or 2016 been especially great?

Thanks in advance.
Rob

wapperdude

Obvious difference upgrading from V2007 is introduction of the ribbon.

Next issue, one of the various upgrades seem as robust as V2007.

Having said that, there is no inherent backward compatibility issues that I know of...other than the bugs.  Each release has added to the VBA object model, which allows more functionality / streamlining of code.  But, old code ought to work.  I use V2007 with Office10, no issues.

As for comparing release features, web search can help.
https://products.office.com/en-us/visio/microsoft-visio-plans-and-pricing-compare-visio-options

Pretty sure John Goldsmith created a pdf file that traced the feature enhancements vs Visio releases, but I can't f find it at the moment.

Wapperdude
Visio 2019 Pro

vojo

2003 ==> 2013
many "quirks"....current count is 12....here are a few of the most annoying.

Example...transparency
2003:   Select child shape in the group, select transparency, original color holds

2013:   Select child shape in the group, select transparency, ALL shapes go to white (no colors held).

Example...Docmd to show props
2003:    Set double click to DOCMD (1312) and shape properties is displayed

2013:    Set double click to DOCMD(1312) and upper most / top shape ignores completely (shows nothing), child shapes show

Example:...3D
2003:    Use June 2nd shapes (build off them, etc)....control points line up, depth scales
            (to be fair, June 2nd did some great work, but the shapesheet formulas to accomplish his work are not trivial)
            BTW, in some cases, I still use shapes I developed that were derived from June's work...especially his connectors.

2013:    Use visio 3D...and here we go
             1:  Uses euler vs quadirion (sp) transformation (a more advanced transformation, no gimble lock, most others use it)
                  To take a 2D and make Iso 3D requires some very odd angles...I can see why there is a whole bunch of canned
                  transforms (depth is always 90 degrees off face...still haven't figured out how to make Amazon symbols)
             2:  Only geometries transformed  (so control points have no visual relationship with transformed shape)
                     basically means iterating between 2D and 3D to get the shape they way you want it
                     connection points are useless in 3D (not transformed) which makes things like MS Azure template that much
                     harder to actually use.
                     This is especially problematic with connectors since there is no 2D 3D visual relationship
                     (basically build entire drawing in 2D, group, then transform to 3D)
             3:  Depth does not scale with size of shape  (grow shrink X,Y and Z stays the same)
                     An option would have been nice (I implemented using a user cell to scale depth based width)
             4:  Bezel functions uses 2D color (no contours)...so need to be careful selecting color and need to play with lighting
                  to see the sides of a pyramid.   Or build the pyramid face by face and play with angles manually
             5:  Selection box is in 2D....so selection box may be way way out of wack with 3D shape
                  You can create shape with a small (5mm X 5mm) selection box and define shape from 0,0
                  something like width *0 + 40mm,  heigh *0 +60mm so that selection box does not take the page
             (to be fair, once you drink the MS cool aid, visio 3D does have a few pros)
             (3D individual shapes, covert to 2D, group them, convert to 3D, individual 3D info holds)

Example:....drawing settings (mm vs inches, grids, etc)
2003:    Visio application holds values ....same settings for all drawings

2013:    Need to create a template to hold settings...create drawings off template
            (to be fair, I guess MS assumed a PRO would have multiple environments...so would use multiple templates)

Etc

I am still learning....have fun

rob31

Thanks very much for both these answers.

Regarding the quirks between 2003 and 2013, I cannot see any in that list that would apply to this application. The shapes used are all single, ungrouped shapes with multiple geometry sections. The application does create a menubar, so it is possible that the addition of the ribbon may cause problems.

I think that I will try and migrate to Visio 2016. I will try and take notes during the migration and post a report here.

Thanks once again

Rob

AndyW

The only significant change I had for my application was the change to the ribbon rather than the command bars.
Live life with an open mind

rob31

Thanks. One more question. I read about a 'compatibility mode' to enable working with old file versions. Is it generally better to work in compatibility mode or just convert all files to the new file format? Once we have updated to 2013/16 there is no need to go back, but I'm just worried that updating the files might introduce further bugs?

vojo

FWIW...I loaded all my stencils in capatibility mode and saved them in 2013 format.  All appear to behave as before.

The problem running in capability mode is that if you want to "enhance" your old shapes (3D, containers, etc) you
will need to save in 2013 format anyway.

Maybe the best option is to keep old stencils just in case and save them, as well, in 2013 format.