Re: dia file exchange

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

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

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause) | Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I    | Retainer of Sir Kegg
will defend to the death your right to say it."    |   of Westfield
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire   | Chaos Berserker of Khorne