Re: dia file exchange

[Lennon Day-Reynolds <lennon kestrel edu>]

You could also just write a standalone (or Visio-hosted) 
Perl/Python/VB/JScript tool that used the Visio OLE controls and the 
MSXML parser to do the transformation in either direction. I'm not a big 
Windows Scripting guy, but I've done enough basic stuff in this style 
(app-to-app conversion hacks) to know it's entirely possible.


Lennon Day-Reynolds


Lars Clausen wrote:

> On Fri, 08 Jun 2001, James K. Lowden wrote:
>
>
> > Lars Clausen wrote:
> >
> >
> > > I guess using OLE to convert files is the only viable option.  Does
> > > anyone here know OLE well enough to attempt such?
> > Yes.
> >
> > The OLE bit wouldn't be that hard, actually, with Perl and decent
> > documentation of Visio's object model.  What might not be so simple is
> > mapping the object models, if you see what I mean.  That would be subject
> > to a lot of judgement.  Unless you're going to invent a new .shape for
> > every visio object, which is ambitious in a different way, no?
> >
> > I'm skeptical, though, of the strategy: Why should Dia want to export to
> > Visio, only to see free data trapped in a closed format?  Wouldn't it be
> > more worthwhile to go the other way, to use Ole to free the data from
> > Visio and write a Dia file?
>
> I was actually thinking of converting Visio files to Dia, not the other
> way.  Many people have come up and said "We're using Visio, but would like
> to switch to Dia, but all our data is in Visio format."  Getting the data
> out of a proprietary format is a worthwhile goal, much more so than two-way
> interoperability with proprietary systems.
>
> -Lars