Smart LineWeight: Bigger Shape, Thicker Lines

Recently we were introduced to the Cisco IP Telephone Shapes, and learned how they could be improved in the article: Making Shapes More Efficient: Using Fewer Shapes & Groups.

Today we’re going to focus on what happens when the Cisco shapes get resized, and discuss a technique for making the lineweight proportional to the size of the shape.

Resize Behavior

In Making Shapes More Efficient: Using Fewer Shapes & Groups, we hinted that there was work to be done when resizing the Cisco shapes.

When we resized the original shapes, we noticed a few oddities:

Nothing Earth-shaking, but if you look close, you’ll notice two things: the LineWeight for the shapes doesn’t get any thicker, and the headphones pull a weird squishy maneuver.

Smart LineWeight

It would be nice if we could get the LineWeight of the shape to change when the size of the shape changes. We can do this by using the ShapeSheet to link a sub-shape’s LineWeight to the size of the group.

Now, there is no “size” property for a shape, but there are Width and Height. And since these shapes should maintain aspect ratio, it doesn’t really matter if we choose the Height or the Width as the key for indicating size change–in most cases they should both be increasing by the same factor.

Using the ShapeSheet, we can construct a smart formula that compares the original height of the shape to the current height of the shape.

This ratio then serves as a multiplier for the LineWeight of each sub-shape. If you’ve read: Text Resizing with ShapeSheet Formulas then you might recognize this technique!

So let’s break it all down. The math looks like this:

LW_new = LW_old x GH_new/GH_old

(Edit: thanks to Ted for a correction here…)

where:

LW = LineWeight of a sub-shape

GH = Group’s Height

The ShapeSheet formula looks like this:

LineWeight = (Sheet.5!Height/0.75)*0.0167

where:

Sheet.5 = group’s ID

0.76 = group’s original height

0.0167 = original LineWeight

The end-result looks like this:

You can see that the LineWeight is now nicely tied to the size of the shape! (And the squishy headphone problem is also fixed. More on that later…)

Of course, I didn’t open the ShapeSheet for every single sub-shape on the page. I wrote some VBA automation code to get it done more quickly. Below, we have the code, which can also be used, with very little modification, in VB.NET.

The code operates on all shapes that are selected in the active window. So make a few duplicates, select them, and run the code on the guinea-pig shapes first!

Sub SetLineWeights()

    '// Links the LineWeights of sub-shapes to the
    '// size of the group.
    Dim shpGrp As Visio.Shape
    Dim shpSub As Visio.Shape
    Dim h As Double
    Dim lw As Double
    Dim fs As Double

    '// Operate on all shapes that are currently selected:
    For Each shpGrp In ActiveWindow.Selection

        '// Get the current size of the group:
        h = shpGrp.Cells("Height").ResultIU

        For Each shpSub In shpGrp.Shapes

            '// Get the current LineWeight of the sub-shape:
            lw = shpSub.Cells("LineWeight").ResultIU

            '// Set the LineWeight formula for the sub-shape
            '// by multiplying the current LineWeight by a ratio
            '// of original-group-height / current-group-height:
            shpSub.Cells("LineWeight").Formula = "(" & shpGrp.NameID & "!Height/" & h & ")*" & lw

        Next shpSub

    Next shpGrp

End Sub

A few things might not be clear to folks who are new to SmartShape creation. I’ll try to address them here:

• To see the ShapeSheet of a sub-shape, you need to sub-select the shape, then choose Window > Show ShapeSheet. To sub-select a shape, you first select the group, wait a split second, then click again on one of the sub-shapes. The sub-shape will be highlighted with light-green handles.
• Alternatively, you can open the group window via Edit > Open Group or Edit > Open ShapeName. Inside the group window, you can select shapes as you normally do, and view their ShapeSheets via Window > Show ShapeSheet.
• To get the ID for the group, just select the group and choose Format > Special. At the top of the dialog, you’ll see the ID field. When you want to refer to cells in the group from sub-shapes, you use the syntax: Sheet.ID!Property. Examples would look like this: Sheet.5!Width, Sheet.168!Angle, Sheet.99!Prop.Cost, and so on.
• Visio 2007 users might not see the Format menu. If this is the case, you need to turn on Developer Mode by visiting the Tools > Options > Advanced tab.
• If you’re wondering about the ShapeSheet, and how to run VBA code in Visio, have a look at the following articles: John Goldsmith: Just For Starters, Run VBA Code When Documents Open and VBA Macro Security

Squishy Headphone Problem

While we were focusing on the resize behavior of the Cisco shapes, we also fixed the problem with the squishy headphone arc. The source of the problem is that the arc from which the headphones were drawn was still a 1D shape.

1D shapes are defined by their endpoints, as opposed to a Width, Height, and Pin location, like normal 2D shapes (ie: boxes.) When 1D shapes are grouped, their endpoints resize proportional to the group, but the height of the sub-shape isn’t affected.

You can read more about the problems (and solutions) of 1D shapes in groups here: Understanding Arc-Resize Problems in Visio