Keeping Visio Data Graphic Items Level

My good friend Scott Helmers, Visio author and trainer, of Harvard Computing Group , recently asked for some help in keeping data graphic items level when their target shape is rotated. Fortunately, I was able to assist, so I thought I would explain how this can be done, and also update my Icon Maker macro from a few years ago. The updated macro is available to download for free and includes the extra ability of sizing the icons. I chose to use some bee stickers from the Insert / Illustrations / Icons tool in Visio Plan 2, and the Status options from the Process shape in the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil to demonstrate.

All I had to so was to associate a suitable bee with a Status value 🙂

The trick is to ensure that the graphic item is a group shape without any visible text or geometry, but must contain at least one line which is preferably horizontal. Then to have a User-Defined Cell, named, say, Angle with the following formula:

"=ANGLETOPAR(ANGLEALONGPATH(Geometry1.Path,1),Width,ThePage!PageWidth)"

This formula uses the ANGLEALONGPATH(…) function to get the angle of a specified geometry segment, then the ANGLETOPAR(…) function to get the angle relative to the page. See Visio ShapeSheet Functions A-C for more of an explanation of these functions.

Then the Angle cell in sub-shapes just need to reference the User.Angle cell of the top shape, but prefixed with a minus sign. The effect is that the icons will remain level to the page when the target shapes are rotated:

Simply run the bVisualIconSetMaker.IconSetMaker.MakeIconSetFromShapes macro in the bVisualIconSetMaker.vssm macro-enabled stencil to create a data graphic icon set from the selected shapes.

Introducing a free Visio Report Runner application

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All of my Visio solutions contain custom masters because this is the best way to create smart shapes that respond to user’s needs. This usually means creating Shape Data, User-defined Cells and Action rows that govern aspects of the shape with formulas designed to provide an efficient user interface. As a developer I sometimes forget…

Docked Stencils in Visio for the Web

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My Visio Books and Old pre-C# Work

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Creating Boolean Context Menus in Visio

Over the many, many years that I have been creating Microsoft Visio solutions, I have had to create numerous right-mouse context menus for shapes to control their Shape Data values. Over that time, patterns emerge, so this article is highlighting three different appearances for simple Boolean values, otherwise known as True/False or Yes/No values, and…