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9 August, 2000: Vol. 2 No. 16

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Part II:
What's New in Visio 10?
Special Report by Ralph Grabowski

In part I of this special report, I described how Visio personnel discovered over the last six months that it was a far bigger job to integrate Visio within Microsoft -- both in programming and in organization. In part II, I describe some of the new features in the next release of Visio:

After Microsoft acquired Visio last January for US$1.4 billion, the formerly independent company became part of the Business Tools Division at Microsoft.

One of the tasks facing Visio programmers was to Microsoft-ize the Visio software to make it one of the family of Microsoft products. The process involves removing components incompatible with Microsoft's in-house programming standard, as well as removing items Microsoft no longer wishes to license from third parties. Removed components are replaced with Microsoft equivalents.

Microsoft Components
Rob Wakeling detailed some of the Visio-written code that needed to be removed, then replaced with Microsoft-written code:

• Accessibility: Visio must be accessible to handicapped users. Every mouse action must be able to be performed by a keystroke or other device, including actions such as drag and drop a master from the stencil onto the page. I'll be interested in seeing that one work!
• Help: remove the AnswerWorks help system, and replace it with Microsoft's own AnswerWizard system.
• Bugs: plug into the Microsoft bug database.
• Certification: Visio must be certified for Windows 2000.
• Authentification: provides security against piracy.
• Annuity: handles the timeout and reactiviation of demo or subscription-based Visio.

Visio 10 GUI Enhancements
Kelly Malone demo'ed to me the user interface enhancements that will be featured in the next major release of Visio, codenamed "Visio 10." Why 10, you might wonder, since this would be Visio version 7 (v6 was named "Visio 2000"). All Microsoft projects must be uniform, so the numbering system is based on its oldest application software, Word, which will reach version 10 with the next release.

It is not certain the next release of Visio and Office will be named "2001" due to the somewhat awkward pronunciation of "two thousand and one." Catherine Brooker of WaggEd, Visio's pr firm, joked that it should be called "Visio: The Kubrick Edition" (named after the director of "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Many of the GUI enhancements in Visio 10 are due to Microsoft's new GDI Plus (graphics device interface) display engine. Mr Malone showed its affect on Visio:

• Highlighting is outlined. Over the years, the user interface of menus and toolbars has become increasingly subtle. GDI Plus reverses the trend by highlighting selected items with an outline.
• Floating toolbars become transparent. When a toolbar is unused for more than a few seconds, it fades to (I would guess) a 50% transparency, so that you can see the underlying document. When the cursor moves over the toolbar, the toolbar again becomes opaque.
• The number of colors handled by Visio has been increased to 32 bits. The first 24 bits are used to specify 16.7 million colors, while the remaining 8 bits are used to handle transparency (making objects see-through).
• Transparency of color fills and shadows means that a shape will have a see-through red color, for example. When two semi-transparent shapes overlap, you see the resulting color mix: red over blue creates purple. You can vary the level of transparency, from fully opaque to fully transparent. The lines (strokes) that define the outline of the shape cannot, however, be made transparent.
• Visio 10 will have ClearText technology, which uses multi-color anti-aliasing to make text look crisper on computer screens.
• Bitmap rotation. When you insert a raster image, you'll be able to rotate by any angle.

The new Visio will also acquire the bigger file dialog boxes found in Office 2000 products. Mr Malone said that windows will roll-up, although he didn't show that happening in his pre-alpha of Visio 10.

Visio 10 File Support
The good news is that Visio 10's native VSD file format will not change. That means diagrams can be shared between Visio 2000 and 10 with no translation.

Visio 10 will import and export two new file formats: XML and IFC (eXtended Markup Language and Industry Foundation Classes). XML you probably have heard about -- it is being promoted as an improvement to HTML (hyper text markup language), which is responsible for the creation of Web pages.

XML extends HTML describe the data stored on the Web page. For example, you might have a Web page of network shapes. When the page is written using XML, it would like just like a regular Web page. The difference is that it contains tags that you don't see, but that XML-aware applications can read. These tags describe the network shapes.

Different industries are creating variants of XML tags specific for their industry. There are XML specs for accountants, architects, and plumbers. You can check out the XML specs at the Microsoft-sponsored http://www.biztalk.org Web site. Microsoft's programmers are giving Visio 10 the ability to read and write XML files, as well as several XML dialects. They hope to add as many XML dialects as possible by the time Visio ships, but two that are in right now are aecXML (for architecture, engineering, construction) and ProjectXML.

Whereas XML represents data in a structured form, IFC represents objects in a standardized format. As you are probably aware, Visio works with objects, but when a diagram is exported, the intelligence behind the objects is lost. IFC allows Visio objects to retain their intelligence, and pass it on to another IFC-aware application. Visio has counted 250,000 copies of other applications that can read and write IFC-compatible files, including Revit, Bricsnet Architectural, Graphisoft ArchiCAD, Nemetschek allPlan, Timberline Precision Estimating, and AutoCAD Architectural Desktop. (Speaking of AutoCAD, it was Autodesk who originally proposed the creation the IFC spec.)

Richard See told me that "IFC will create pull for adjacent seats to automate processes." This means that applications that do bidding, estimating, financial management, and design can exchange data without you having to reformat it. At a trade show, Microsoft has demo'ed Visio passing a floorplan via IFC to Timberline for cost estimating. This worked after the objects in Visio had the "construction" method attached to them, which defines the cost of the material and the number of man-hours of labor.

Mr See also filled me in on Project Blis, which allows software to implement the IFC specification, even though the spec isn't finished yet. I'll cover it in greater detail in the next issue of Visions.eZine.

Both XML and IFC are specifications in progress. When they appear in Visio 10, treat them as "version 1" file formats. You should expect many changes to occur to XML and IFC over the next several years. While XML is due to appear in all Microsoft products over the next year, IFC will appear in Visio only, although there is some chance it may also show up in Project.

Miscellaneous Visio 10 Features (nor Not)
Visio 10 will not have any .NET capabilities, other than handling XML files. There will be no further IntelliCAD-style integration for Visio Technical.

Other new features include about 80 new methods and events for programmers. The "Developing Visio Solutions" book has been handed over to Microsoft Publications.

Localization is planned for 14 languages: US English, international English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, traditional Chinese, and simple Chinese.

Summary
Visio 10 is due to go into beta this fall, and is scheduled to ship in the first half of next year. It won't necessarily ship at the same time as Office 10, but at roughly the same time period. International editions of Visio 10 will ship within 90 days later.

By the way, the Business Tools Division of Microsoft tells me they have two #1 products with Visio. Visio Professional is #1 in terms of revenue, while Visio Standard is #1 in terms of unit sales.

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