Re: dia file exchange

[Lyle <lyleb home com>]

The other group (of which I am a member) use Dia but need to give the 
diagrams in editable format to superiors who use Visio.  This is really what 
I was after.  I agree that open file formats are better, but to gain 
acceptance, any new software needs to be able to work within the existing 
standards, proprietary or not.

Cheers,
Lyle

On Friday 08 June 2001 07:21, you 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