Custom Properties units

[msnews.microsoft.com]

We plan to use custom properties to display data that has units that are
different than the units used by Visio. For example, temperature, pressure,
flow rate (lbs/hr or kgs/hr), etc. Visio allows a floating point number
with units; however, the units that we need are not provided by Visio.

Does anyone have a solution for this; i.e., is there a way to add to the
Visio units, or do we have to add a units label to each custom property that
needs to be updated programmatically?

Thanks.

 

[Al Edlund]

I would respectfully suggest that units/numbers are agnostic. What I mean is
that until you put a label next to them they mean nothing, i.e. the number 1
can be a temperature 1 degree, a count 1 apple, etc.
Don't confuse the holder format, with what you are trying to represent. It's
up to the coder/creator to ensure that the proper label is put next to the
display of what you are measuring.
Al

 

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Dear Al,

Ok. But it is the labeling that we are trying to do thru Visio instead of
having
to pass all of the labels to Visio for each shape and each custom property
in
each shape. Visio has a units feature for custom properties, but the units
do not include the ones we need. If there is a way to expand the Visio
units, that would be best. Otherwise, we will have to create our own table
of units and reference each property to the units for that property. Does
this make sense? Do you see our problem?

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Can you include the units in the label for the custom property? For
example: "Pressure, psi"

 

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Mark, thanks for the suggestion. The problem is that we support both
SI and US units and we want the units to be displayed on the drawing
along with the values. Also, if you change the units being used from, for
example, US to SI, the units displayed on the drawing have to change.

We were hoping that Microsoft had given this some thought in the
design of Visio and there was a solution that would be more elegant
than our using a table of units or a label for each custom property. I
think others will run into the same problem.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

In the past I've simply done the conversion in my own code. Keep in mind
that Microsoft did not develop Visio as an application. Also Visio itself
does not handle US vs. Metric well, as evidenced by the duplicate sets of
shape content.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

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