VisioAutomation 3.0.0

Major version bump. Several behavior changes that affect callers:

• The exception type thrown by CustomPropertyHelper.Set and UserDefinedCellHelper.Set for malformed values changes from COMException to ArgumentException (with the original COMException preserved as InnerException).
• Client.Model.DrawDirectedGraphDocument now respects each layout's UseDynamicConnectors setting from XML, instead of hardcoding it to false.
• DirectedGraphDocumentLoader.LoadFromXml now rejects non-<directedgraph> root elements that previously parsed silently.
• Minimum supported .NET Framework rises from 4.0 to 4.5.2 (binary-breaking for consumers still on net40).

Source compatibility for property accesses is preserved: the new Formula property on CustomPropertyCells and UserDefinedCellCells is paired with an [Obsolete] Value alias scheduled for removal in a later release.

Changed

• Minimum required .NET Framework raised from 4.0 to 4.5.2. .NET Framework 4.5.2 was released in 2014 and has shipped via Windows Update for years, so consumers on a current Windows machine are essentially unaffected. The package's lib\ folder also moves from lib\net40 to lib\net452, correctly reflecting the binaries' actual target framework — the previous lib\net40 claim would silently install the assemblies into a net40 project where they would fail to load.
• Replaced the deprecated <licenseUrl> nuspec element with the modern SPDX <license type="expression">MIT</license> form. The license itself is unchanged (still MIT) — only the metadata representation differs, which is what nuget.org's package page now expects.
• The package now includes a README.md at its root (sourced from the repo's readme.md) so the package page on nuget.org renders project content directly instead of just metadata.

Added

• DirectedGraphDocumentLoader.LoadFromXml now honors a connectortype attribute on <renderoptions>, accepting Curved (default), Straight, or RightAngle. Previously the connector type was hardcoded to Curved regardless of XML, so every directedgraph rendered from XML had curved connectors. Closes #140 (sub-issue of #105).
• DirectedGraphDocumentLoader.LoadFromXml now honors a direction attribute on <renderoptions>, accepting TopToBottom (default), BottomToTop, LeftToRight, or RightToLeft. Also accepts a layout attribute, currently Sugiyama-only (any other value raises ArgumentException with a descriptive message). Closes #141 (sub-issue of #105).
• DirectedGraphLayout.LayoutOptions (new public MsaglOptions property) carries per-page layout settings parsed from <renderoptions>. Defaults to a fresh MsaglOptions() for programmatically constructed layouts.
• Typed setters on CustomPropertyCells: SetString(string), SetNumber(int), SetNumber(double), SetBool(bool), SetDate(DateTime), SetFormula(string). Each emits a correctly-encoded Visio formula and sets Type to match. New canonical replacement for raw Formula = ... assignment, which is a foot-gun for string values (a bare identifier like "testVal" is parsed as a name reference, not a literal). Closes #144.
• Typed setters on UserDefinedCellCells: SetString(string), SetFormula(string). Same idea, simpler surface (no Type field). Closes #144.
• Formula property on CustomPropertyCells and UserDefinedCellCells (renamed from Value to surface that the cell stores a Visio formula, not a literal value).

Changed

• CustomPropertyHelper.Set and UserDefinedCellHelper.Set now wrap Visio's formula-error COMException (#NAME?, #VALUE!, etc.) in an ArgumentException with a self-explanatory message pointing at SetString / EncodeValues. Behavior change: callers that catch COMException from these methods will need to catch ArgumentException instead (or both). The original COMException is preserved as InnerException. Part of #144.

Deprecated

• CustomPropertyCells.Value and UserDefinedCellCells.Value are now [Obsolete] aliases for Formula. Source compatibility preserved through the deprecation window; the alias is scheduled for removal as part of the Phase 3 modernization work. Migration: rename cells.Value to cells.Formula, or use the new typed setters (SetString, etc.). Part of #144.

Changed

• Client.Model.DrawDirectedGraphDocument now respects each layout's LayoutOptions (the per-page MsaglOptions) when rendering, instead of always overriding UseDynamicConnectors to false and ignoring the parsed usedynamicconnectors / scalingfactor from XML. Behavior change: XML <renderoptions> attributes that were previously parsed but silently dropped now actually take effect; programmatic callers who relied on the hardcoded UseDynamicConnectors=false should set it explicitly on dg_layout.LayoutOptions before calling.
• DirectedGraphDocumentLoader.LoadFromXml now validates that the root XML element is <directedgraph> and throws ArgumentException otherwise. This is the same root name the Import-VisioModel cmdlet has always required; the bare loader API previously accepted any root and silently parsed only its <page> children, which let typos like <autolayoutdrawing> succeed without warning. Surfaces the schema mismatch that bit the #105 reporter. The four in-repo test fixtures (VTest/datafiles/directed_graph_*.xml) have been re-rooted from <autolayoutdrawing> to <directedgraph> to match.

Fixed

• OrgChartDocument.Render no longer fails with COMException: File not found on Visio 2013+. The default OrgChartStyling.Visio2013Template was hardcoded to orgch_u.vst, but Visio 2013 replaced binary .vst templates with XML-based .vstx and modern Visio installs only ship orgch_u.vstx. Updated to orgch_u.vstx. Visio 2010 (Visio2010Template = "orgch_u.vst") is unchanged.
• GeometrySection.Render now returns the section index Visio assigned to the newly-added geometry section, instead of always returning the literal 0. This matches the API's stated intent (and the Geometry gitbook page's claim) so that callers adding multiple geometry sections can target a specific one by index. Closes #128.

Artifacts

• VisioAutomation2010.3.0.0.nupkg is the NuGet package. Place in a folder, add that folder as a NuGet package source for your project, then Install-Package VisioAutomation2010.
• VisioAutomation2010-binaries-3.0.0.zip is the raw DLLs for projects that do not use NuGet.

Related

• The companion Visio PowerShell module wraps this NuGet for PowerShell use.
• Project documentation.
• Full changelog.