Dynamic vsd generation from ASP

[Ashley Bryant]

I have a web application built in ASP 3.0 that uses data from SQL Server 2000
to generate Visio 2002 drawings, save the drawings to a file on the webserver
and then send that file to the browser. We've successfully installed and ran
the application with Windows 2000 server, Windows Server 2003 (Web Edition
and Enterprise), Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP and with SQL
Server 7 and 2000.

Now we've attempted another installation (IIS on Win2K AS and SQL 2K on
Win2K AS) and we get no response from Visio. The Visio process is being
started on the server, but it appears as if nothing happens after that. I
plugged in a few debugging lines in my Visio generation routine and it
appears that as soon as the Visio instance starts the script is losing track
of it because it does not know that the instance started. The administrator
of the web server cannot end the process through the task manager either,
which is rather puzzling. The script also does not seem to be timing out,
even though we have a script timeout set for 30 seconds in the global.asa
file.

Anyone have some thoughts on this?

 

[Chris [Visio MVP]]

Since Visio 2002, you could write Visio files in an xml format. If your
drawings don't need sophisticated layout features that Visio offers, you
might be able to generate the files as pure xml, and save them as .vdx
files.

Google or MSDN on Visio & XML to find out about schemas, etc. Simple save a
Visio file as .VDX hand a have a look inside. If you can program Visio docs
via automation, you'll understand the xml format.