bVisual

Visio

Published on by

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 VisualSignals), and together we examined the cause. It came down to a badly formed sub-shape within the shape that had zero dimension … and in fact had an incomplete ShapeSheet. If you look at the screenshot below, then you may notice that there is no Shape Transform section! That is a mandatory section, and should always exist … so how did this happen?

[Read more…] about How SVG in Visio can cause a Shape.BoundingBox(…) error

Published on by

Post-Processing Paste from Clipboard in Visio

One of my current Visio VSTO add-in projects requires me to react to users pasting custom shapes in the Visio page from the clipboard. The process involves registering the ExitScope event and then checking the Clipboard contents. Initially, I was merely testing for a line in the DataObject that started with the word “Visio “, but then testing revealed that copying and pasting text from one shape to another was also getting processed, so then I added a further check that the line also finished with the word ” Shapes”. This works fine, but then I got to wonder if I could also post-process tables copied and pasted from Excel because the standard paste maintains font settings but omits the tabs and line feeds, making the text unusable without serious manual editing. This article explains how this can done.

[Read more…] about Post-Processing Paste from Clipboard in Visio

Published on by

Are Master Shortcuts useful in Visio?

Many Visio users may not even understand the question, but this almost hidden feature has been available for many years. A Master Shortcut looks like a normal Master in a stencil, but it is merely holds a reference to another Master in a Stencil, not necessarily the same one, and has an option to add actions that can change properties of the target Master when it is dropped on the page. The advantage is that the shapes on the page are still instances of the target Master in the document which makes customisation and maintenance much easier. So, why would you use them?

One good reason is that you are providing a custom stencil, but you want to include some of the built-in Microsoft ones. Just including a Master Shortcut to the Microsoft Stencil and Master does not break any copyright laws that I am aware of.

Another good reason is that many users prefer to just drag’n’drop a Master from a Stencil rather than further mouse clicks to configure the dropped shape with the Shape Data window or the right mouse actions.

This article describes how to use Master Shortcuts using BPMN shapes as an example.

  • The BPMN Task has 10 types available from Shape Data window and context menu
  • Copy Master then Paste Shortcut into an editable Stencil
  • Edit Master Shortcut Properties and rename, then copy/paste as required
  • Multiple Master Shortcuts but only one Master
[Read more…] about Are Master Shortcuts useful in Visio?

Published on by

Co-authoring and Commenting with Visio Documents

Microsoft Visio can be used in the web browser and on the desktop, but there are several licensing options available, so which ones can be used concurrently whilst supporting co-authoring and commenting? This article tests the various scenarios but assumes that the Visio documents are stored in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online\Teams. The Microsoft article, Work together on Visio drawings, explains most of the scenarios, but does not clearly explain the scope of the Visio web licenses with respect to diagram types or customisations.

[Read more…] about Co-authoring and Commenting with Visio Documents

Published on by

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 1996 (see Chase Manhattan Bank – bVisual ), and since then I have created hundreds of dimensionally accurate catalogue components for use in scaled drawings for multiple manufacturers. Over the years, I have developed some patterns in ShapeSheet formulas that I re-use consistently. In this article I show the pattern that I use to provide a user with specific width and height dimensions that can be selected in any of three ways:

  1. Manual resize of the shape with the shape handles to only the specified sizes
  2. Selecting a dimension from the Shape Data panel
  3. Selecting a dimension from the right-mouse Actions context menu

All of these options are linked together so that editing the list of specific sizes are easy to maintain.

  • Resize manually
  • Select a Shape Data value
  • Select a context menu Action
[Read more…] about Fixing dimensions of 2D shapes

Published on by

Merging Linked Data from Similar Tables

I was recently asked how to link data from different tables but with similar column names to Visio shapes. In this case, each table has the same unique identifier, but some of the column names are the same. The problem is that the data linking matches the column name with the label of a Shape Data row label, so the shared columns were updated with the values from the last linked data recordset. In this article I present a simple way that this restriction can be overcome.

[Read more…] about Merging Linked Data from Similar Tables