bVisual

bVisual Blog by David Parker

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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 ShapeSheet Functions O-R , but here is one way that it can be incorporated into a useful shape for, say, cabling or piping, and thus be available in Shape Reports. Moreover, the Shape Data can display the length of each of the segments in the line, in addition to the total length.

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Adding Macro Ribbon Buttons to Visio Documents from a Stencil

I wrote a post a few years ago entitled How to Run VBA Macros from a Ribbon Button in Visio 2010, and was recently asked how to add the custom buttons to an existing tab. Well, it got me thinking that I don’t really like having any VBA code in my Visio diagram documents, so I thought I would explain how all the code can be in a macro-enabled stencil so that it can be used with many different diagram documents. It turned out to be a very easy modification….

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Save Time by Using Microsoft Visio ShapeSheets​​ and other webinars

You need new ways to save your organization and yourself time. Did you know that much like an Excel user creates formulas within worksheets to make jobs go faster, Microsoft Visio has built-in efficiencies? For example, Visio has a structure similar to worksheets, where shapes and formulas can be leveraged to provide highly useful functionalities that save time.

This webinar is a gentle introduction to Visio ShapeSheets and the extra smartness they provide that will improve efficiency and save you time.

Register for this live webinar on 2nd June 2021, or watch this and others on demand at https://conferences.presentergroup.com/visioandpowerplatformwebinars

Protecting the integrity of custom Visio masters

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…

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…

A visual exploration of Penrose Tiling in Visio

Maybe it is because I used to be a building architect, but I have always been fascinated by the relationship between numbers and visualisations. Perhaps the most famous one is the Golden Ratio which has been used as the basis of many building designs and art pieces. It is often recognised to create a harmony…

How SVG in Visio can cause a Shape.BoundingBox(…) error

I have used Visio’s Shape.BoundingBox(…) for many, many years and I cannot ever recall it failing, but I have now managed to create some shapes that cause it to error. This caused many hours of confusion, so I nearly abandoned using the method, until I discussed it with my fellow Visio MVP, John Goldsmith (see…

Jumping between Shapes in Visio

Many Visio diagrams get quite large, and sometimes it is useful to provide the ability to jump to another shape quickly in the same document, either on a different page or on the same one. Although there is an add-on provided in desktop Visio that is used by the Off-Page Reference shape provided in the…

Fixing dimensions of 2D shapes

I am often asked what makes Visio unique and makes it stand out from the crowd, especially in today’s online world. Well, I think there are many reasons, but one of them is the ability to create scaled drawings with parametric components of specific dimensions. This was crucial for my adoption of Visio back in…

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Testing Regional Settings in Visio

There are times that I have been caught out by assuming that everyone speaks “proper” English, like what I do (sic), and forgetting that there are other languages with their own formatting conventions. I think most of the world is bemused at the USA date format where they put the month before the day and the year. So illogical to everyone else, and I can’t help thinking that it was done on purpose just to catch us Brits out, like when they decided to drive on the wrong side of the road just to make it more difficult to sell cars across the border. It seems that some parts of Visio get confused if I enter the dates in the correct “dd/mm/yyyy” format, so I now type dates in the “d mmm yyyy” format in the Shape Data window calendar control because, at least, that always works. Also Visio‘s internal units are inches, and every time I see it referred to as US Units, rather than the Imperial Units that I grew up with, makes me think “so, this is what it has come to!”.

So today I was embarrassed by a Norwegian client because I forgot (again) to take extra care when using the RGB(…) function. The result was that the displayed colours were appearing black in Norwegian (and doubtless many other languages), but correctly grey (gray if you are in the USA), blue, green and yellow in English (both UK and US).

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