how do I add to "Choose Drawing Type"

P

Paul

Hi,
I want to add my own custom templates and categories to Visio's
File|New|Choose Drawing Type. How do I do that? The Visio developer SDK
added a Category for SDK and a sub category for Samples and it added
Flowchart and WBS TreeView templates. I can't find where in the
documentation is says how to add those. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
J

junethesecond

Only information we can get is,
"Description of the Windows Installer PublishComponent table for Visio
2003" in MS support online.

To add them, you need Microsoft Visual Studio Installer, and ORCA.
And Microsoft Office Visio Solution Publishing Tool
in Visio2003 SDK is usefull.
 
J

John Marshall, MVP

It's not too hard to do, just long winded.

1) Create a file folder that contains a folder for each category you want.
The name of each folder will be the name used in the category. If you get
creative, you can play with using sub folders.
2) In Visio, open the Options dialog from the Tools menu and select the
Advanced tab. At the bottom of the Advanced dialog is a button for File
Path.... Press the button and add the location of the new file folder to the
stencils and templates paths. Extra paths can be added by seperating each
entry with a semi colon.
3) Create a template to be used as the selection criteria for Drawing Type
then place the template and the stencils in one of the subfolders you
created in the first step.

The drawing that show in the Drawing type window is the preview drawing that
is associated with all Visio files. The trick is that the original Visio
template contains a sample drawing. The template is saved with the Save
Preview option set in the drawings Properites and then the option is turned
off, the sample drawing is deleted and the template is resaved. Thus the
sample is removed, but the preview is not updated. When it is time to
release a copy of your template, make a copy of the master template and do
the deletion in the copy. Then when it is time to update your template, you
still have a copy with the original sampe drawing.

(This is a better explanation than the one I provided at
http://www.microsoft.com/office/previous/xp/columns/column12.asp
I should get that upgraded)

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm
 

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