I want to use the standard Visio swimlane shape in a custom stencil I made.
Everytime I drop the swimlane shape onto the sheet Visio changes into the cross-functional flowchart stencil but I want to remain in my custom stencil and just place the swimlane.
As I don't now how to modify the EventDrop command "=RUNADDONWARGS("CFF14","/cmd=20001")" without loosing other functionality like auto-positioning and auto-sizing I honestly don't have a clue how to prevent Visio from jumping into the stencil/opening this stencil.
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OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit
Visio: Microsoft Visio Professional 2010 32bit (14.0.7128.5000)
It is possible, but may not be not easy. The swimlane shapes were designed to work with Visio template.
The key here is, the swimlane shapes contain information from which stencil they come from.
To use swimlane in your own stencil, you'll need to modify that, so that Visio knows that your swimlane comes from your stencil.
Also, swimlane shapes are meant to work together; means, you'll need to have them all (including hidden ones) in your stencil.
So, to make CFF use your stencil instead of the standard one:
1. Save the standard CFF swimlane stencil ("cross-functional-flowchart") under new name.
2. Open it for editing, then open "Master explorer".
3. For all masters, which contain field "User.visMasterStencil", change it to your stencil (including invisible ones!)
Thank you for your quick reply!
I already tried something like this:
- Copied xfunc_m.vss from system folder to my folder and renamed to xfunc_m_user.vss
- Modified User.visMasterStencil property of my shape from xfunc_m.vss to xfunc_m_user.vss
The problem:
If you use my shape now (drop it to the page) then xfunc_m_user.vss is opened.
So I actually have the same situation like before with just my copied xfunc_m_user.vss stencil openend.
I can change xfunc_m_user.vss as this file isn't read-only instead of the original one, but I don't know what to change...
Then I tried this:
- Copied all shapes from xfunc_m.vss to my stencil user.vss
- Modified User.visMasterStencil property of my shape from xfunc_m.vss to user.vss
Problem:Now my swimlane doesn't work anymore >:(
It looks like you did not update the hidden masters.
Please follow this procedure step by step:
1. Create new "Cross-Functional-Flowchart" diagram.
1. Save the "Cross-Functional Flowchart Shapes" to to some stencil, say "xfunc_m_user.vss" (Save as -> "xfunc_m_user.vss")
2. Open the xfunc_m_user.vss for editing (Right click -> "Edit stencil")
3. Open the Master explorer. This is a special window which can be opened by right-clicking on stencil title, it allows you to see hidden masters. (Right click -> "Master Explorer")
4. For each master (including hidden ones), open it for editing (double click master)
4.1 Select all shapes of the master (Click Ctrl+A)
4.2 Open the shapesheet for the master shapes. Change text in the user cell "User.visMasterStencil" to "xfunc_m_user.vss".
4.3. Close the master shapes window, updating the master.
5. Save the stencil.
6. Save the file as new template (.vst)
Do this for the following masters:
- "CFF Container"
- "Phase List"
- "Separator"
- "Separator (vertical)"
- "Swimlane"
- "Swimlane (vertical)"
- "Swimlane List"
6. Save your stencil.
Attached sample template/stencil pair made this way (yellow swimlanes).
Just used the instructions to create a custom version of the VISIO BPMN 2.0 stencil.
The original stencil lacked the Input/Output options on the Data Object master.
Great help, had struggled with the problem that the original BPMN stencil opened.