Visio_2016_Notes - nasa/gunns GitHub Wiki

Visio 2016 & Visual Studio 2017 Notes

In May 2017 we are investigating whether the GunnShow app works with Visio 2016 and can be developed & maintained in Visual Studio 2017.

The answer is yes, however there are a few issues and notes:

Results & Recommendations

  • The existing v17.0.5 version of GunnShow (built from our Visual Studio 2010) works in Visio 2016.
    • Subsequent GunnShow builds from VS 2010 will probably also work with Visio 2016.
    • We tested it with TS21 drawings: CabinFluid.vsd, EpsLabElect.vsd, EpsPriElect.vsd, ItcsLabFluid.vsd, and GUNNS repo drawings: TestFluidNetwork.vsd,
      GunnShowThermalTest.vsd.
    • We tested with 64-bit and 32-bit Visio, with no issues.
  • Visio 2016 opens all old .vsd drawings in ‘Compatibility Mode’
    • There are no performance impacts. More details below.
  • Visual Studio 2017 can build GunnShow but requires minor changes to the project settings & content.
    • We were able to build for 32-bit and 64-bit Visio 2016 and verified that build works.
    • GunnShow built from Visual Studio 2017 is NOT backwards-compatible with Visio 2010. These problems are known to occur, and there are possibly more:
      • New links added to the drawing don’t get their name label or shape data.
      • The Add Socket List button won’t create the socked list window pop-up.
    • These changes have been developed and will be maintained parallel to mainline development until we decide to make them permanent in a release.
    • We recommend users wait for a release containing these changes before building with Visual Studio 2017. This release is TBD and will depend on us getting a successful 64-bit build from VS2017. In the meantime, users should continue to build with 2010.

Visio 2016

  • We’re testing Visio 2016 Standard, in Windows 10.
  • We’ve tested builds from VS 2010 in both 64- and 32-bit Visio and everything works.
  • We’ve tested builds from VS 2017 in both 64- and 32-bit Visio and everything works.
  • All old drawings (with .vsd extension) open in Compatibility Mode. Windows shows their file type as Microsoft Visio 2003-2010 Drawing. You can upgrade the drawings to avoid Compatibility Mode by either:
    • Save As type: Visio Drawing (.vsdx)
    • Use the Compatibility Mode Convert button in the Info pane. This also saves it as type: Visio Drawing (.vsdx)
  • However, we recommend that you don’t convert your drawings into .vsdx until you’re sure you won’t need to update them from older versions of Visio, because:
    • Older versions of Visio will not be able to open .vsdx without first downloading a compatibility pack,
    • which will probably require administrator access,
    • we don’t know if everything works and we won’t support GunnShow in this mode.
  • There doesn’t seem to be any performance difference between Compatibility & non-Compatibility. However, converting them to .vsdx seems to greatly reduce their file size.
  • Visio & Office: an article about how to choose between 32- and 64-bit.

Visual Studio 2017

  • We’re testing Visual Studio Professional 2017, in Windows 10.
  • To open the GunnShow solution in VS 2017, we had to install these extra features to VS:
    • .NET desktop development
    • Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)
    • Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects extension
  • The GunnShowAddIn and GunnShowAdminAddIn projects require a one-way upgrade of some git-controlled files to be opened in VS 2017.
    • GunnShowAddIn.Designer.cs, GunnShowAddIn.csproj, etc.
    • VS does this automatically when you reload the project in the Solution Explorer.
    • Once these files are upgraded, these projects will no longer work in VS 2010, so we have to decide when to make this upgrade permanent.
  • We made several changes to the project contents & settings to get it to build. As a result, users who want to build GunnShow in VS 2017 should wait until we can release these changes in GUNNS release v17.1. Changes are detailed in the GitLab issue: https://esgl-gitlab.jsc.nasa.gov/gunns/gunns/issues/44
  • Some educational articles about Visual Studio:
    • https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/03/07/1832258/microsoft-releases-visual-studio-2017
    • https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/01/VS-64-bit
    • https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241066.aspx
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