Smart graphics for visual people
Do you have shapes that contain multiple colors that you’d like to easily change?
Wouldn’t it be neat to be able to specify those colors in Shape Data fields, along with other parameters for the shape?
Visio’s Shape Data fields don’t directly support colors, but I’ve come up with a workaround. You can read how I did it, or just get the download and re-use what I’ve already built!
A couple weeks ago, I briefly glanced at my annoying Facebook page and noticed that people were commenting on the “new look”, which I was fortunate enough to not notice.
What did catch my eye was a comment from one friend, who noted; “Hey, the new Facebook has squircles!” Then another replied; “Yes, squircles are so Web 2.0!”
Naturally I was put off by how folks try to Out-clever-two-point-oh each other on Facebook, but I was nonetheless curious about squircles, because they sounded…well…visual!
If you’ve read our last article, Visio Multi-shapes, then you know what a great feature multi-shape-ness can be.
However, until you graduate from Visio Geek University (go VGU!), and become proficient with ShapeSheets, those pesky multi-shapes can be quite difficult to build.
So what if user’s could somehow define their own multi-shapes?
That question has burned today’s article into my mind, and today it comes to you via the information super-highway. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce to you the Configurable Stickman, which who can be set to one of five positions.
And YOU can define the positions yourself!
[Read more…] about A Re-programmable Visio Multi-shape: The Configurable Stickman!
For a long time, I’ve been wondering: what makes a color dark and what makes a color light?
I’ve been wondering this because I wanted to know, quantitatively, why I sometimes need white text and other times need black text in order to make a shape readable.
If you are designing shapes that use lots of color, or that are intended to be used with Visio 2007’s color-by-value data graphics feature, you might be wondering the same thing.
And if you are looking to construct a ShapeSheet formula that automatically selects a text color based on the background color of a shape, then you might really be wondering about this!
Well recently, I stumbled upon a solution!
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:
1 2 | 10 PRINT "Chris is a turkey!" 20 GOTO 10 |
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
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!