The ORM Foundation

Could you please provide some instructions on how to import a Visio orm model?

By my understanding, to import a Visio ORM model into NORMA, you need to:
1) Export the Visio ORM model to XML using Orthogonal Toolbox (available from http://www.orthogonalsoftware.com/products.html)
2a) Rename the exported XML file to have a '.orm' extension. At this point, if you double click on the ORM file, it should open in NORMA and be automatically converted.
OR
2b) Alternatively, if you don't want to rename the file to have a '.orm' extension, you can leave it with a '.xml' extension and do an 'Open With' inside of Visual Studio, selecting 'ORM Designer' as the editor.

Note: When a file is first imported, the 'Save' function in NORMA will be unavailable until you have done a 'Save As.' This is to prevent accidentally saving the converted version over the original.

Thanks Kevin.

Doesn't appear to work completely.  The diagram is not shown.  The object browser does contain the objects, but there doesn't seem to be any  way to see the diagram.

Tried it with three different Visio models from simple to complex and same results each time  (actually once VS crashed, but we should probably ignore that for now).

Is this a procedure issue, or should I report it as a bug?

There is no way to export model information from Visio. The current behavior is:
1) Automatically pull all of the elements onto a single diagram (they'll be stacked in the upper-left).
2) Let the user do a 'Select All' (Ctrl-A on most boxes) followed by an 'Auto Layout' (on the context menu). The autolayout is not great, but it is better than having them all stacked in the upper left corner.

This was turned on when we moved to multi-diagram views (change 452). Unfortunately, it was lost in change 488. I fixed it in 560 (not posted yet, but will be out soon, I'm banging on it and stabilizing a few things). If you're interested, can build, and want it before then, then change line 343 in ORMModel\ShapeModel\ORMDiagram.cs from
else if (!isLink && this.ActiveDiagramView == null)
to
else if (!isLink && (!this.AutoPopulateShapes && this.ActiveDiagramView == null))
and rebuild ORMPackage.sln

Once again, there is no diagram to see because one does not exist in the exported file. You can drag individual elements from the ORM Model Browser to the diagram.

It would be helpful if there was a way to import or recycle VisioModeler and InfoModeler models for use with NORMA and ORM 2.  Even if only the objects types (along with thier properties), from an VM or IM model were available in a NORMA generated model, that would make reuse a lot easier.  A perfect automated conversion of IM to NORMA would be great, but even a few tools to help us convert our old IM models would be useful, and something to build on.  
BRN..

Along the lines of the previous reply, a version of the PowerPoint tutorial aimed at InfoModeler users would be welcome.  You know: "Where in IM you did this, in NORMA you now do this."  BRN..

I got an XML file and didn't know which tool has ever been used to generate it. The only information I got is, it can be read by NORMA. After a few tries - e.g., try to import .xml file (failed), try to merge it with existing orm files and projects (failed). Then I saw Kevin's suggestion - to simply rename .xml into .orm - which sounds very 'unprofessional', but indeed worked!  :-D

Thanks Yan,

It's useful to know that Kevin's  suggestion of 2006 still works!

I suspect that some people are still using the ORM component of Visual Studio for Enterprise Architects (aka "VEA") because amazingly, even though VEA is now 10 years old - it has some features that are still not implemented in NORMA.

VEA is the subject of the "Blue book" that is shown on the home page of this website and it is much better than VisioModeler.
There is quite a lot of VEA information in the Library

However, NORMA is ORM 2 and is much faster and easier to use than VEA which implements ORM 1. 

Hopefully, it won't be too long before NORMA's features are all better than those in VEA.