Referencing Visio Shapes

Every Visio shape must have a unique name in the collection that it belongs to, and to ensure this, Visio automatically one using the master name or just “Sheet”, if not an instance of a master, followed by a period (“.”) and the ID. However, a user can rename a shape, and Visio will then also update the universal name (NameU) to be the same as the Name. If a user chooses to re-name a shape a second time, then thee universal name is not updated … it remains as the original name.

To demonstrate this I drew a rectangle, then named, and re-named it:

This is the simple VBA code that was called by an Action in the shape:

Public Sub ShapeNames(ByRef shape As Visio.shape)
Dim txt As String
txt = "ID = " & shape.ID
txt = txt & vbCrLf & "Name = " & shape.Name
txt = txt & vbCrLf & "NameID = " & shape.NameID
txt = txt & vbCrLf & "NameU = " & shape.NameU
MsgBox txt
End Sub

So, there can be several ways to reference a shape, but be aware when they can be used. For example, the Name cannot be directly typed into a ShapeSheet formula, but the NameU can.

If the NameID is used in a ShapeSheet formula, then it will be automatically re0displayed with the NameU.

Interestingly, either the NameID, NameU or Name can be used if using the EVALTEXT(…) function is used.

In VBA, or other code, then the shape can be referenced by either the NameID or Name, but not by the NameU value. The shape can also be referenced with ID value using the ItemFromID function.

?ActivePage.Shapes("Sheet.1").NameU
Shape A

?ActivePage.Shapes("Shape B").NameU
Shape A

?ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(1).NameU
Shape A

If the Name is deleted using the Shape Name dialog, then the Name is reverted to the NameID, but the NameU still remains unchanged.

The universal name, NameU, was created so that the Visio UI could display a language specific Name value whilst maintaining a language independent NameU in the background.

Code can be used to update the NameU, provided that it is a unique name within the collection.

Every shape can also have a globally unique id (guid for short), which can be created, read or deleted with the various parameters passed to the UniqueID property of a shape (or PageSheet or DocumentSheet). This could be used to name a shape, as in the following VBA code:

Public Sub NameShapesOnPageWithGuid()
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
For Each shp In ActivePage.Shapes
  shp.Name = shp.UniqueID(Visio.VisUniqueIDArgs.visGetOrMakeGUID)
  Debug.Print shp.ID, shp.NameU, shp.Name
Next
End Sub

This could display something like the following in the Immediate Window:

1755 {04168AB4-2442-40AC-85A2-402B6B6EB97B} {04168AB4-2442-40AC-85A2-402B6B6EB97B}
2067 WBS_2 {14FA6C60-3476-4904-A35C-B4F8568E8EDF}
2070 WBS_2.5 {F7BE8598-C994-4E4B-8691-EDA7573D9D88}
2097 WBS_2.5.2 {53651EEF-1D5D-4C76-8E6B-E09BE036A922}
2112 WBS_2.5.2.1 {E318FC1A-00E5-4062-A62C-480A6E37C77A}
2143 WBS_2.5.2.2 {0DC8C127-5767-430A-B3A2-147E74F50EC6}
2174 WBS_2.5.2.3 {D11417B7-1DAA-4716-AF97-1FC0005E8C12}
2189 WBS_2.5.2.4 {558E05C0-9443-47AA-82E4-4D45866E0CE2}
2073 TASK_1016991 {81F75F38-6AC3-4864-A175-1270F1094EE5}
2077 TASK_1016994 {8CEBD7FE-757D-4A06-816F-3FB112CD0314}
2081 TASK_1017013 {B314B362-7451-4EE3-B9C8-4A38E6DDCDFB}

Notice that the first shape in the list above has the same NameU and Name, but the rest of shapes already had a custom Name, so a second attempt to create a custom Name will not update the NameU property simultaneously. The NameU property can be set in code again, if required, but remember that the Name and NameU values must be unique in the shapes collection that they are part of. In addition, they cannot be a zero-length string.

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