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 🙁
Interactive Demographics of the European Union in Visio
I was recently contacted by a reader, Stanley M. Max (Towson University lecturer), who had started creating a Visio map of the 27 countries in the European Union in 2020, along with the demographics culled from Wikipedia. He wanted to know if the map and stats could be combined to make a more appealing presentation.…
Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio beyond its limits
My last post was about some of the lessons learnt when trying to push Data Visualizer to its limits, but this one has some ways of overcoming these limitations. The main lesson learnt is that DV binds the shapes within the DV container shape, CFF Data Visualizer, and controls some of the ShapeSheet cells that…
Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio to the limits!
Regular readers of my blog will know that I like to use the Data Visualizer (DV) in Visio Plan 2, but I recently tried to help a user who really decided to push it to the limits. In this scenario, there were multiple connections, but with different labels, being created between the same flowchart shapes,…
Linking Data to Visio Shapes in Code
One of the most useful capabilities of Visio Professional and Visio Plan 2 is to link external data to shapes and have them refreshed by changes in the data source. So, many of my solutions involve writing code to make these links, and they are covered with some VBA examples in my book, Mastering Data…
Visio Shape Report Converter Excel add-in available
I am delighted to announce that I have just had my first Excel add-in accepted in the Office Add-ins Store! It is called Shape Report Converter because all it does is convert a Shape Report converted from Visio for Desktop to a modern Excel table with one click! It isn’t a complicated add-in, and it…
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…)
Nice detective work, David! I need to think about a previously unresolved problem: as obscure as this case is, it could be a factor.