Sharing space for Visio Shape

[Yacine]

If we'd follow the main stream, we'd host interesting stencils on git hub. Isn't it?

[Surrogate]

we'd host interesting stencils on git hub. Isn't it?

Yes

[Paul Herber]

Github's not the first place I'd look for anything Visio.
Doing a Github search for "visio" brings up stuff matching "vision", so therefore useless.
Search for "visio template" shows nothing to do with Visio.
Search for "visio stencil" brings up 70 items, some even have suitable tags.
I tried looking at a few that look interesting, 2 showed binary file not available, 2 showed "cannot show binary file that large (2MB).
Give up.

[Paul Herber]

Here's a little thing people might like to play around with.

https://www.stencil-gallery.paulherber.co.uk/

Don't go bookmarking it, it won't stay up for very long, and I'm not going to buy the software that runs it yet either.

[Yacine]

Here's a little thing people might like to play around with.

https://www.stencil-gallery.paulherber.co.uk/

Don't go bookmarking it, it won't stay up for very long, and I'm not going to buy the software that runs it yet either.

Nice, but there is no preview. You would have to download the stencil to check its content.

Speaking about the search results on github, you get the wrong results because there is no appropriate content. If there were more visio related stuff, it would show in the results. It would be up to us to provide it.

And to think it further down, there could be collections for different aspects:
- stencils (obviously)
- links lists (like this one: https://github.com/gabrielbhl/awesome-python )
- development patterns ( eg: https://github.com/faif/python-patterns)
- code snippets - vba, .Net, python, etc.- utilities libraries, eg:  - handling props and users cells  - import export to Excel and Access  - setting up a doc, page, ...  - iterating

[Paul Herber]

Nice, but there is no preview. You would have to download the stencil to check its content.

A bit difficult on a web server running Linux/Apache.

[Nikolay]

I think this is more task for Microsoft to do...
It should not be GitHub, it should be a separate site. GitHub is for code, not shapes.

I think this is all about the App Store thing. I believe you can vote for it here, but I am not sure if it brings much:
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/a084dd51-e01c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f88a4


Anyway. Preview and search are essential, without them the whole site doesn't make much sense IMHO.
But previews and search require parsing Visio files (preferably on server).

To me, the only lib that is capable of doing that more-or-less "okay" is Aspose.
But it's commercial, and quite heavily commercial (they have a new cloud API now though, and free tier there, like 150 calls per month).
Maybe they would agree to sponsor such a project, though.

Another question is copyright and shape licensing.
I am completely lost here - some shapes may be commercial or copyrighted (in fact, most of them are).
How would you suggest to deal with this?

[Surrogate]

I think this is more task for Microsoft to do...

Many hardware manufacturers have invested in open source software. Their logic is clear:
if there is no software, then there is nobody need to buy hardware.

MS does not seem to be interested in this at all! They believe that users are satisfied with the stencils supplied with the product.
Users will happily upgrade their licenses every 3 years to get the stencils with slight restyling

[Yacine]

I think this is more task for Microsoft to do...
  Sure, but we all know how fast M is in answering requests, ...
  The repo is for us users, not for M improving their product
It should not be GitHub, it should be a separate site. GitHub is for code, not shapes.
  Well, it is for sharing and some of the stuff is code. Actually a big part of it.
Preview and search are essential, without them the whole site doesn't make much sense IMHO.
  Right ...?
But previews and search require parsing Visio files (preferably on server)
Another question is copyright and shape licensing
  All the stuff I personally write and upload here is free.
  Commercial content - as Paul's shapes and utilities - are re-linked to their respective sites. GitHub would be no different.

[Yacine]

Search for "visio template" shows nothing to do with Visio.

Refining the search with topics option brings more results.
https://github.com/topics/visio

[Paul Herber]

Here's a little thing people might like to play around with.

https://www.stencil-gallery.paulherber.co.uk/

Don't go bookmarking it, it won't stay up for very long, and I'm not going to buy the software that runs it yet either.

Nice, but there is no preview.

https://www.stencil-gallery.paulherber.co.uk/

Now with pictures! And even the folders are illustrated!
Of course, these images were created manually.

[Yacine]

You shouldn't have sent this. You're giving us ideas .

[Nikolay]

I think it always comes to this 



Somebody needs to do it, the the science the site won't do itself 

[Surrogate]

Anyway. Preview and search are essential, without them the whole site doesn't make much sense IMHO.

What about GitHub Pages ? For example http://jheyman.github.io/blog/pages/VisioTips/.
Or GitBook ? My personal site on GitBook.

It should not be GitHub, it should be a separate site. GitHub is for code, not shapes.

There you can find an example site with preview and opportunity download stencils…

[Nikolay]

It does not solve the main problem of parsing Visio stencils (and creating preview images and searchable text from shapes).
I mean, GitHub pages are great of course, but they seem to be unrelated. Today, one can create a site much easier than that.

Please note that I'm assuming something as easy to use as "image finder" type websites:

https://imagefinder.co/search/festival

https://www.iconfinder.com/search?q=microsoft

https://fontawesome.com/v5.15/icons?d=gallery&p=2&q=windows