Using a formula for Shape Data labels prevents multiple updates

I have only been developing Visio solutions for 25 years, but I got a surprise this week when I was trying to understand why I couldn’t update the value of a Shape Data row of multiple selected shapes. It is something that I often do, so it took me a while to understand why I was failing to change the values, even though it appeared to initially change in the Shape Data window. There was no problem selecting the shapes individually, but every time I selected multiple shapes and edited these particular rows, I could see the new value in the Shape Data window, but as soon as I looked at the individual shapes, I could see that the values never got changed. I checked my code in vain, and ran the Events Monitor from the Visio SDK. Visio seemed to enter the Shape Data scope, but then immediately exited it without attempting to apply the new value to the shapes. Very strange!

An examination of the ShapeSheet formulas also showed that there was no dependencies or precedents either …. Then I noticed that I was using a formula to display the Label text, rather than just a simple string. A quick edit proved that this was the surprising problem. It doesn’t matter if the formula is something as simple as the following in the Label cell (this wasn’t the actual example but this demonstrates the issue):

="Status" & "*" 

It will fail, but editing back to the following makes it work again:

="Status"

Who knew? Certainly not me 🙁

A Multi-Time Zone Clock for Visio

I wrote a post about making a clock face in Visio fifteen years ago, but a reader recently asked about displaying multiple time zones. Well, I have previously written about time zones in Visio, so I accepted the challenge to improve upon my earlier work. (more…)

Update any Visio ShapeSheet cell with External Data

When Microsoft introduced a new way of linking external data to Visio shapes in 2007, I initially bemoaned the inability to update anything but Shape Data row values, unlike the old database add-on that I had been using for 10 years. The new method, though, has many advantages over the old way, not least that…

Understanding Morse Clicks with Visio

A few years ago, I wrote an article about messaging and encryption inspired by a visit to the National Museum of Computing in the UK. I developed a Morse Click shape to demonstrate how Visio can be used to represent and learn Morse Code. However, I never published the shapes here, and my good friend…

Forcing Display Update of Inherited Data Values

I was going to title this “When is a truth not a truth?” because I have found that Visio can sometimes refuse to apparently update the displayed value in a cell, even though it has been changed. However, this was, in this instance, down to a misunderstanding of the formula evaluation events on my part.…

Using Custom Fill Patterns from a List

A reader asked how to fill a shape with a custom fill pattern from a fixed list in of a shape. They had no trouble with the first 25 standard fill patterns, but couldn’t figure out how to apply a custom pattern. So, I shall try to explain how this can be done … (more…)

Automatic Line and Segment Lengths in Visio

Many years ago, I wrote some VBA code to calculate the length of a multi-segment line in Visio, see Automating Area and Perimeter Length Shape Data , but Microsoft have since provided a handy ShapeSheet function, PATHLENGTH(…), to do the same without any VBA. The function is described on one of the pages in Visio…