Fwd: Need Visio help; where is best?

Subject: Fwd: Need Visio help; where is best?
From: Lin Sims <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:48:19 -0400

Tammy

You mean selecting several shapes and grouping them into one? No, that's
not what I mean. I've tried stuff like that, and the lines invariably wind
up going in weird directions or overlapping when you don't want them to, or
NOT overlapping when you DO want them to.

The last message bounced because of having inline images, so I'm trying
again with the images in a zip file instead, and hopefully it is also under
the size limit.

The connector I'm talking about is seen in tree_icon_visio.png in the
attached zip.

On the page, it looks like branch_connector_visio.png.

If you click on that little yellow square the arrow is pointing to, you can
use it to pull out more of those parallel branches on the right side. But
it's limited to only 6 branches, and the stuff that controls how those
branches act is contained in two different section types of that figure's
shapesheet. One is called Controls, and can be seen in
Controls_rows_visio.png

Note that there is one Controls.Row_# for each branch.

There are also multiple Geometry sections. I believe Geometry 1 is the
middle line on the left, and then Geometry 2 through Geometry 7 control the
branches, and are linked to the Controls rows. geometry_visio.png only
shows Geometry 2 and Geometry 3.

What I want to do is basically double (or so) the number of branches that
can be pulled from that square by duplicating the existing Controls rows
and Geometry sections and then editing them so they have the right values
in them. So far, the only way I've found is to manually insert each
separate row and each separate Geometry section and copying and pasting
each cell over.

There just has to be a better way. Since I don't really have time to find
it or figure it out (as I said, not really a power user of Visio and
definitely don't know anything about VB) or do it by hand, I was hoping
someone might know if it's possible to do that sort of duplication and if
so, how.

Meantime, I'm carefully drawing little lines and connectors and hoping that
things don't go wonky when I try to group it for saving out to SVG.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 2:38 PM, Tammy Van Boening <
tammyvb -at- spectrumwritingllc -dot- com> wrote:

> Lin,
>
> If I am understanding your question correctly, can you use the Shape> Group
> function, and group all that needs to copied, then copy this group, and
> paste? If I am not understanding correctly, then sorry. . . Visio can be a
> beast, I agree.
>
> Tammy Van Boening
> Owner/Principal
> Spectrum Writing, LLC
> www.spectrumwritingllc.com
> TammyVB *AT* spectrumwritingllc *DOT* com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+tammyvb=spectrumwritingllc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tammyvb=spectrumwritingllc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> ]
> On Behalf Of Lin Sims
> Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2016 11:39 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Need Visio help; where is best?
>
> I'm doing more and more in Visio these days, and I've run into a situation
> where the best solution (not the only, but the best) is to use the
> multibranch/tree connector. There's a hard limit of 6 branches, though, and
> I need far more than that.
>
> I'm not Visio expert, but I have figured out that I need to add multiple
> rows to the Controls section and multiple Geometry sections (one per row).
> Is there any way to do this as a batch instead of one by one? That is, is
> there any way to copy an entire row in the Controls section and duplicate
> it
> n times until I have enough, and is there any way to duplicate an entire
> Geometry section? I expect I'd have to make minor edits to the cell values
> so that they're referring to the right points or vectors or whatever, but
> the progression looks easy enough to deal with.
>
> Googling isn't helping much. It keeps coming back to duplicating shapesheet
> data from one object to another, whereas I want to duplicate information
> within the shapesheet for a single object.
>
> NB: I have no experience with VB or macro writing, and the only programming
> I learned was COBOL and RPG back in 1991, so suggestions to write a VB
> macro/program are unlikely to be useful unless you already have it.
>
> (I have a feeling I'm going to wind up doing this by hand with lines
> instead
> of connectors, which is fine but tedious. I like efficiency.)
>
>
> --
> Lin Sims
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and
> content development | http://techwhirl.com
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as tammyvb -at- spectrumwritingllc -dot- com
> .
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
> http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and
> info.
>
> Looking for articles on Technical Communications? Head over to our online
> magazine at http://techwhirl.com
>
> Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions? Search our public
> email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives
>
>


--
Lin Sims
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | http://techwhirl.com

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com


Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications? Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions? Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives


References:
Need Visio help; where is best?: From: Lin Sims
RE: Need Visio help; where is best?: From: Tammy Van Boening

Previous by Author: Re: Need Visio help; where is best?
Next by Author: Further education - what are other tech writers doing?
Previous by Thread: Re: Need Visio help; where is best?
Next by Thread: Re: Git not for docs? was: Re: How do you use VMs?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads