Visio 2003 and Electronics Schematic Diagrams

[patlaw]

Assume that I create an electronics schematic diagram using Visio 2003 Professional. Component A is connected to Component B with the Connector Tool. If I move Component A or Component B, the connection properly rubber bands. Now assume that I add Component C. The Component C Connection Point needs to connect to the Connector to the connection between Component A and Component B. There is no Connection Point on the "wire" between A and B. If I add a Connection Point using the Connection Point tool, the connections do not rubber band, as if they are not connected. Am I doing something wrong, or is that behavior a limitation of Visio? It's clear that 2003 is not as robust as a schematic capture program, but I want to be sure I'm not doing something wrong. For example, is there a way to select two connections (or "wires" in a schematic diagram) and then tell Vision to join or connect them?

[Paul Herber]

Seems to work fine here, Are you sure the connection point is really associated with the connector? Does it show in the connector's shapesheet?
I've attached a simple example.

[wapperdude]

There are a couple other alternatives which avoid adding connection points to the connector lines.

1.)  Under Tools > Snap and Glue, enable glue to shape geometry.  Now your new connector line will glue to an existing connector line and will rubber band.

2.)  On the transmission line stencil, there is a Junction shape.
           a.)  Modify this shape to enable connector splitting.
           b.)  Modify the drawing page properties to allow connector splitting.
           c.)  Now drag the junction shape on the existing connector and it will attach itself.  A new connector may be glued to this shape.

Note:  you may avoid the "splitting" scenarios if you place the junction shape 1st and re-route the existing connector to it, and then add a connector from the junction shape over to shape that was connected, but that's a big pain.

HTH

Wapperdude

[patlaw]

Since I'm new, I probably don't know what I'm doing. Suggestion No. 1 from Wapperdude seems to help. There are so many options that I may have something totally out of kilter.

My previous schematic drawing experience is with a program specifically for that purpose. One thing that I really want to be able to do is to have all of the connectors (lines/wires) placed on a 0.1" grid. Sometimes the connectors in Visio are slightly off the grid, and they look thicker and fuzzier. If I highlight the entire drawing and do very small movements with the cursor keys, there is usually a position where all of the lines are clean.

If there is a tutorial on working with grids and guides, I'm happy to start there. The lynda.com tutorials were not that helpful, but I'll go through them again to try to nail the problem.

Thanks for the assistance. I'll be back!

[wapperdude]

My experience is that Visio doesn't do schematics as well as a schematic program.  Most notably, the rubber banding capability.

However, the following should improve the Visio schematic experience:
1)  Menu bar > File > Page Setup > Page Properties tab.  Set Measurement Units to Inches(dec)

2)  Page Setup > Layout and Routing tab, Spacing button:  Set Connector to Connector and Connector to Shape spacings = 0.1 inch

3)  Menu bar > Tools > Ruler and Grid.  Set minimum spacings to 0.1 inch

4)  Tools > Snap and Glue.  Make sure Snap is set to include grid;  ruler subdivisions is optional selection.

HTH
Wapperdude

[patlaw]

Thanks for that. I had all of the settings as you suggested (from playing around.) A sample document is attached. It still doesn't seem like the connections are snapping to the ruler/grid as they should. For what it's worth, I had a similar problem with an application many years ago. It was a software bug - described as a rounding error in the code.