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bVisual Blog by David Parker

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A Visio List Shape is also a Container

Structured diagrams have been around in Microsoft Visio since 2010 and I have always known that list shapes are a specialized container shape, however it still came as a surprise to me recently that a list shape can simultaneously act as a container shape!

There are a few examples of both container and list shapes in the Microsoft provided content in all versions of Visio desktop, and even in the subscription Visio for web. The most popular of these is the Cross-Functional Flowchart template which contains container shapes (the Swimlane and Separator shapes) within list shapes (Swimlane List and Phase List), which are within another container shape (CFF Container).

In Visio desktop, the Insert / Diagram Parts / Container allows you to choose from a number of pre-built container shapes. There is no button to insert a list shape, but you can create your own or easily modify one of the pre-built ones to behave as a list shape.

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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 allowing shapes to be members of one or more containers. There are a few built-in Container shapes that can be added with the Insert / Diagram Parts / Container gallery, but shape developers can also create their own. Member shapes can be positioned anywhere within the container. There is a second type of container, List, that provides the ability to have ordered member items. There is no ribbon command to add these, but there are a number of these special shapes provided in the OOTB Visio stencils. For example, dragging and dropping a List box shape from the Software and Database / Software / Controls stencil will automatically add three List box item shapes to it.

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Preventing Deletion of Container Members in Visio

The concept of Structured Diagrams was introduced in Visio 2010 and is featured in many of the templates supplied with Microsoft Visio, and in some third-party solutions, like mine. Connectors, callouts, containers and lists are the key parts of a structured diagrams, and there are times when preventing the deletion of members of a container or list is desirable.

  • An example cross-functional flowchart
  • Accidental deletion of a process shape
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Enhancing the Built-In Containers in Visio

The concept of Structured Diagrams was introduced in Visio 2010 to provide core functionality for a variety of the templates in Visio, such as the Cross-Functional Flowchart, BPMN Diagram and Wireframe Diagram. This is primarily evident as Containers, Lists and Callouts and they can be customized (see Custom Containers, List and Callouts ), as shown in some of my previous articles ( see https://blog.bvisual.net/?s=container). One example of this extension can be found in all of the flowchart shapes that placed into a swimlane in a cross-functional flowchart. They have a Shape Data row, Function, that automatically inherits the text entered into the header of the swimlane. In another example, a Visio user can use Insert / Diagram Parts / Container to visually group other shapes together, and update the header text of the container. Well, I often do want my custom shapes to inherit the text of a container, so, in this article, I show how the built-in containers can be enhanced to provide this ability.

InheritingContainerText

You should be aware that I often exploit the fact that Visio creates a local copy of each master shape that it uses within a document. This can be modified and set to match master by name on drop, to ensure that it is the one to use, even if the original Microsoft provided version is used. In this case, I use this trick to create hidden, enhanced versions of the containers that are available in the gallery of containers. Microsoft also do this with the Dynamic connector shape in a number of their own templates.
If you examine the Function Shape Data row of any of the flowchart shapes, then you will find the formula:

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Visio 2010 Container Problems

Update : I have received a corrected response from my friends at Microsoft regarding the use of Spatial Neighbors and Containers, so I have to revise this post from its original. The changes are marked in Red.

The Structured Diagramming API in Visio 2010 is really neat, but there are a couple of problems that I think you should be aware of. The first one is about how shapes can appear to be in a container, but aren’t really; and the second is how the Container type prevents SpatialNeighbors from working … unless you use a new constant.

Let’s start with an example diagram that contains three Process shapes on a Cross Functional Flowchart. Notice that I have select the Process shape labelled A and this has caused the swimlane Function 2 to display a brown highlight … this is a good indication that the Structured Diagramming

API is working, and that Function 2 is a container shape. I have placed two more Process shapes below the swimlanes, and one of them (C) is on top of a SubProcess shape.


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When is a Visio Callout not a Callout?

I have been a Visio user/developer since the mid-1990’s and seen the word “callout” used as part of the name of many master shapes in Visio. The images below show five ways that the term “callout” has been applied to the name of Visio master shapes. Generally, each evolution has been an advance on the previous ones, or have becoome specialised for their usage … until Microsoft made “callout” shapes available in Visio web editions. These are not an advance in evolution, but are a radical regression, and in my opinion, quite unnecessarily basic, and extremely frustrating.

  • The original Callout shapes
  • The Custom Callout shapes
  • The Data Graphic Text Callouts
  • The Structured Diagram Callouts
  • Visio Web Callouts
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