Smart graphics for visual people
If you actually read the articles on Visio Guy, then chances are you have braved the world of the Advanced User.
This might have involved creating Shape Data fields, linking those fields to text, creating a custom Data Graphic or, *gasp*, even venturing into the ShapeSheet.
If you’re one of these types, you’ll want to consider running Visio In Developer Mode…
[Read more…] about Top 9 Reasons for Turning-on Developer Mode
In our last article on smart frames, we built a SmartShape that maintained a constant border-thickness, no matter the size of the shape.
It was a fairly simple frame, it got the job done, but it had a uniform frame-thickness all the way around, and offered no way for an end-user to change that thickness.
In this article, we’ll add some flexibility to the shape by making separate margin parameters for each side. We’ll also expose the margin settings to the user via Shape Data fields.
Wapperdude submitted this “mike” shape to Visio Guy, for us to pass on to our readers.
According to WD, the inspiration came as follows: I saw a request for audio symbols in the Visio forum, had this dumb 1998 mike shape, sent it to school and now it’s smarter.
So for you A/V folks out there in Visio Land, here’s a new SmartShape for your diagramming enjoyment!
If you create elevation drawings for rack systems, for cabinetry, for A/V systems with TVs and video monitors, or for walls with doors and windows, you’ll find yourself needing frame shapes.
And while your equipment may come in different sizes, the frames should maintain consistency when they are stretched.
For example, you may have several sizes of monitor: 19-inch, 21-inch, 48-inch, etc. Even though the picture gets bigger, the bezel around the display stays the same thickness. You get more display area, not more plastic!
A Visio SmartShape offers an elegant way to depict these objects. With a little bit of ShapeSheet programming, you can make one shape that can do the job of several!
We’ll call these shapes Smart Frames. This article is the first installment in a series about creating and understanding Smart Frame shapes in Visio! So enjoy this article and stay tuned in the future!
You can learn a lot from bad examples.
Call it learning-from-our-mistakes, anti-patterns, or devilish fun, there’s a lot to be gained by looking at how-not-to-do-it.
Those of us over 30 might remember our first introduction to BASIC programming, taught to us by our friend Jeff, in the electronics corner at the local super market. While Dad was shopping, Jeff went over to the Commodore Vic 20 demo kiosk and typed the following lines:
10 PRINT "Chris is a turkey!"
20 GOTO 10
Utterly useless, except for the fact that it forever singed into our memory the ideas of branching and infinite loops…
[Read more…] about Punish Your Users with (not so) SmartShapes That Misbehave
If you’ve ever drawn arcs in Visio, then grouped them together with other shapes, you may have noticed that they behave rather oddly on resizing. As you make the group bigger or smaller, the arcs may bow or squish in ways that you didn’t expect.
This problem arises because of the interaction style of the arc shapes, which is 1D. Visio has two interaction styles: 1D and 2D. They have to do with the green handles you see on the shape, and how you go about manipulating the shape with the mouse.
In this article, we’ll describe the difference between the two interaction styles, and explain how to correct resizing problems you might be encountering.
[Read more…] about Understanding Arc-Resize Problems in Visio
Visio has tons of keyboard shortcuts, including modifiers for constraining the resizing and moving of shapes. For instance, with the Shift key depressed, you can constrain a shape to move only vertically or horizontally. Neat-o!
But unless I have totally missed something (which does occur occasionally), there is one feature that Visio could really use: the ability to resize shapes on-center.
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.
[Read more…] about Smart LineWeight: Bigger Shape, Thicker Lines
Today’s post, like the Visio Guy web-site, is all about creating smart graphics.
We’re going to create an evergreen tree shape that fades as its size decreases. With this one single SmartShape you’ll be able to illustrate an entire forest-scene that fades into the mist. And you won’t have to format each tree individually.
You will learn how to cut Visio shapes into pieces and union the bits together to form new shapes. You’ll learn how to add parameters to shapes, and fill them with Excel-like ShapeSheet formulas create sophisticated graphical behavior. And you’ll create a context menu that resets the shape with a click of the mouse.
Multi-shape capability is one of the qualities that make Visio SmartShapes something special. A single shape can alter its appearance at the click of a context-menu, or the change of a data value.
While Visio shapes are often vector based, you can also create Visio multi-shapes using images. Using the simple panning-and-cropping technique described in this article will help you to quickly build efficient image-based Visio multi-shapes! So if you have a set of icons just aching to become a SmartShape, read on!
[Read more…] about Visio Film Strip Shapes: Hurray for Hollywood!