Paul Herber Software

Addon to allow Visio VBA to do a "Save As"

There is no built-in dialog in Visio VBA to do a Save As. So, I have created an addon that can do this.
Download the .zip file below, unzip it and run the .msi file contained within. This will install the addon in Visio.
Now download the test.zip file below and unzip it into your My Shapes folder. Open this file and look at the macro "SaveAs".
Edit the contents of the string "SaveAddress" to change the default location and name where the file is saved to.

Output dialog Visio add-on that can display text when a shape is double-clicked, dropped on a page, or duplicated

There is no built-in ability for Visio to display a text dialog box when a shape is double-clicked or dropped on a page. Just install this addon, then run the file "test.vsd".
As can be seen not only can text be displayed but you can also show any value(s) from the shape's shapesheet.
Nor is this dialog limited to the double-click event, it can also work on shape drop. Open the shape's shapesheet editor and put the formula in the cell EventDrop instead of EventDblClick.
You can also perform multiple events, say you want to give some instructions before opening one of the standard Visio dialogs. If also want to open the Fill dialog then you could use:
=RUNADDONWARGS("outputdialog", "Your instructions") + DoCmd(1066)
or
=DoCmd(1066) + RUNADDONWARGS("outputdialog", "Your comments")
if you want to display your text afterwards.

To insert a new line in the text use the text '\r' within your text string.

Following a suggestion from a user here is another version, but this one uses a tool window. Install both!

Comments:

Run a Python script from within Visio

Python scripts can be run from Visio by adding a hyperlink to the script to any shape, but this does produce a security warning. The Event cells cannot invoke Python scripts though. So, I have created a Visio add-on that can invoke a Python script from any of the shape Event cells, or even an Action cell, though this may be less useful.
The installer below contains an example diagram that should work with any version of Visio from Visio 2003 onwards, and a Python script that just displays the full names of all the open documents (including stencils).
The cell linking to the Python script to be run should contain a formula viz:
RUNADDONWARGS("runPythonScriptFromVisio",SUBSTITUTE(DIRECTORY()," ","%20")&"printdocs.py")
1. runPythonScriptFromVisio is the name of the addon that Visio calls to do all this
2. SUBSTITUTE(DIRECTORY()," ","%20") gets the path of the folder where the Visio document was loaded from (and where, hopefully, the Python script is located) and replaces any spaces in the path with %20, the code value for a space. The addon restores these spaces before activating the Python script.
If you wish to run a script from some other location then you need to manually replace spaces in the path of filename with the %20 text e.g. c:\users\bert\My Documents\My Shapes\ becomes c:\users\bert\My%20Documents\My%20Shapes\.
3. printdocs.py - the name of the script to be invoked. P.S. only Python scripts are allowed, the addon does check this.
The addon itself was written in Lazarus/FreePascal.

Displaying a web page within Visio

A question was asked recently on the SuperUser forum: https://superuser.com/questions/1378502/can-i-add-a-webpage-browser-to-a-visio-diagram about how to add a view of a web page from a Visio diagram.
There is no built-in method of doing this but I thought I might be able to modify my Output Dialog for Visio, and I have managed to get something working.
Just install this addon, then run the file "test web page output.vsd" which the installer adds tou your desktop so it is easy to find.
Double-click the shape and a web browser window will open at my website (www.paulherber.co.uk). The web browser is not as complete as others but displays my website just as any other browser would. The only exception that I know of so far is that it doesn't run javascript so it does throw up an error but just continue and the page shows correctly.
The browser window may be moved and resized as required.