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.

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