Visio 2003 Add-On compatibility with Visio 2002

[Tony Nancarrow]

I have created a Visio Add-On (VSL) in C++ using the helper class library
from the Visio 2003 SDK.

How do I make this loadable from Visio 2002 as well?

I tried defining VAO_SUPPORT_VISIO10 in my project, but this did not make my
Add-On's name appear in the list of Add-Ons in the Tools > Add-Ons menu in
Visio 2002.
(VAO_SUPPORT_VISIO10 is referenced in "vao.h" and causes VAddon::Load to
return the interface version number for Visio 2002).

I am using VAO_ENABLEALWAYS in my Add-On constructor.

Does anyone know how to make my add-on compatible with both Visio 2002 and
2003?
I could build one version with the Visio 2002 SDK and another with the Visio
2003 SDK, but I don't really want to have 2 versions of my VSL.

Regards,

Tony Nancarrow

 

[Heidi Munson [MSFT]]

Use the Visio 2002 SDK wizard to build an add-on that will work with both
Visio 2002 and Visio 2003. Add-ons created for Visio 2002 will run in Visio
2003. Add-on created with the Visio 2003 wizard will not run in Visio 2002.

The Visio 2002 SDK wizard will create two add-ons for you one that has a
local name and one that is universal. If you need to support both version
of Visio this is the best way to build local/universal named add-ons.
Visio 2003 SDK will only create one add-on because add-ons in Visio 2003 can
have two names (local and universal).

The existence of VAO_SUPPORT_VISIO10 in vao.h is a bug; it should not be
there. The full conditional compile to support Visio 2002 add-ons is not
supported in the Visio 2003 SDK Library files. The change is more
significant that just a version number change. There a different structure
passed to Visio to publish the add-on in Visio 2003. Visio 2003 structure
has Unicode support for names and supports local and universal add-on names.
To see this compare the VAOREGSTRUCT structure defined in Visio 2003 SDK
vao.h and Visio 2002 SDK vao.h.

-Heidi
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

 

[Tony Nancarrow]

I've now got my Add-On to work on both Visio 2002 and 2003.

I had a few minor problems due to extra command line parameters passed to
the Add-on class's Run function (e.g. "/shapeu=Sheet.nn" for various shape
related events) with Visio 2003, but have fixed these now.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Tony Nancarrow