I recently (re-)discovered that there is a limit to the number of Actions section rows that will be evaluated for display on the right mouse menu of a Visio shape. I have not hit a limit (yet) for the number of rows that can be added to the Actions section … so why is there a limitation to the number that will be displayed on the right mouse menu? In Visio for desktop, any rows over this limit will simply not be displayed, but in Visio for web it prevents any Actions from being displayed at all on the shape.
Well, this limit is 50 in the desktop, and 49 in the web … which you may think is too many anyway, but the Visio ShapeSheet provides the ability to each row above or below the built-in menu, be invisible, be disabled, be read-only, and to group them in sub-menus or with spacers, so, given that a single Visio smart shape can incorporate many different options within it, then this limit can be reached unknowingly when creating custom Visio masters.
I often use the right-mouse menu to provide a quick way of changing Shape Data values that are available in a fixed-list. There can be many fixed-lists in a single shape, so there could be many synchronized Actions providing configuration options. Even the Microsoft provided BPMN shapes have 28 Actions rows currently, and I think I remember that there were more in earlier versions of Visio.
So, if your custom master shapes will be used in Visio for web, then you must never have more than 49 rows in the Actions section. It is acceptable to delete rows to keep to this maximum number.
If your custom master shapes will be used in Visio for desktop, then only the first 50 rows will ever be evaluated for display. You can have more than 50 rows in the Actions section but only use rows above 50 for use as menu rows for Action Tags. There appears to be no limit to the number of Actions rows that can be displayed under Action Tags which can be displayed in a many positions around a shape. However, these are a Visio for desktop only feature, and their display can be ugly on some graphics cards…
Setting Theme defaults in Visio
I was recently asked how to change the default font size and line weight in Visio, and then saw then many others are asking the same sort of question. I found one reasonable answer suggesting that you should create a new document from your required template, then edit the Styles to suit, and then save…
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…
Referencing Container Data in Visio
Microsoft Visio has a useful Structured Diagramming concept that consists of Containers, Callouts and Connectors. The first of these features make it possible for shapes to know what they are contained within, as a better option to grouping shapes together. Grouping can hide or break the grouped shapes smartness, so Visio provides two ways of…
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…
Correcting the Text Control Handle on Visio Network Shapes
There are literally thousands of master shapes in the stencils supplied with Microsoft Visio, so I guess that mistakes can creep in. One error that I have noticed is the inability of the default text control handle of many of the network shapes to actually move the text block horizontally. (more…)
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