bVisual

Shape Design

Published on by

Understanding Visio Connections

A reader recently asked if I could explain how to programmatically get the shapes connected to a shape in Visio. So, I thought I would have a go, because there are alternatives, depending upon which functions are used, and what parameters are passed to them. The following animated gif is rotating around the different types of selections that can be made from the lower Decision shape. Normally, two 2D shapes are connected together using a 1D shape. The 1D shape has a direction because it starts from “BeginX” and finishes at “EndX”. This is irrespective of an arrowheads that the user may have chosen to adorn the 1D connector with at either end.

multiSelect Children and Parents

[Read more…] about Understanding Visio Connections

Published on by

Understanding Visio 2013/2016 Themes

Although Microsoft Visio shares the basic theme structure with Microsoft Office, it had to be extended to suit the extra complexity required. Theming not only affects the color, but also the fonts, connectors and effects. The animated gif below flashes through all of the themes and variants available in the Visio 2013/2016 interface. These are not the only themes built-in because there are still some deprecated ones, and some legacy Visio themes.

Visio 2016 Themes

[Read more…] about Understanding Visio 2013/2016 Themes

Published on by

Protecting Shapes from Themes in Visio 2013+

There is a vast community of Visio users out there, and some clever people produce stencils for others to use. These are a tremendous resource for other Visio users, especially if they are free. One such stencil is the Skype for Business 2015 stencil that is available from TechNet ( https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Skype-for-Business-2015-4a8f03dc ). It is amazing that PaulB_NZ has produced such a comprehensive stencil. I could not help noticing a comment about using them with themes in Visio 2013+. Basically, they end up as a blob of solid colour, so I thought I would help out with a tip about protecting shapes from themes, and another about sub-shape selection.

No ThemeTheme applied
image
image
[Read more…] about Protecting Shapes from Themes in Visio 2013+

Published on by

New book available for pre-order : Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio Professional 2016

2661en_5241_mastering20data20visualization20with20microsoft20visio20professional202016

I have a new book on Visio coming out in June called Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio Professional 2016. It covers the ins and outs of data with Visio!
Please visit http://bit.ly/1SeVfwW for more information.


Packt Publishing are currently running a deal on my last book, Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation , until 12th April 2016:

Follow this link : 1LHNDwI

Published on by

Visio Rocks for Flag Semaphore … or another use of Lists

My good friend and fellow Visio MVP, John Goldsmith, aka visualSignals.typepad.co.uk, was telling me about a family visit to a semaphore tower over the weekend. Well, I just couldn’t resist making a flag semaphore shape in Visio. First, I looked up semaphore up Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_semaphore .

The character can easily be changed with the Shape Data panel … and watch the arms rotate … best with a wheel mouse rolling up and down in the Character drop-down  

[Read more…] about Visio Rocks for Flag Semaphore … or another use of Lists

Published on by

Displaying the Fill and Line Section Values of a shape

A few years ago, I wrote an article about displaying the RGB value of shapes ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2010/04/22/displaying-the-rgb-values-of-shapes ). I had forgotten about it, but a reader recently asked if it was possible to force the Foregnd field to display the RGB value for the standard color palette values. For example, red is number 2 in the palette, and has a value of RGB(255,0,0). In revisiting the article, I realised that there is a smarter way to display the values, without the need of any macros.

I simply created a master shape that exposes each of the cells in the Fill and Line sections as Shape Data rows. This allows me to enter values in the Shape Data window and see the effect on the shape immediately. So, it was easy to drop one shape, insert text fields, and then use the Array Shapes tool to layout the shapes. Finally, I just entered the the standard color map numbers 0 to 24 in the FillForegnd Shape Data row.

image
[Read more…] about Displaying the Fill and Line Section Values of a shape