Visio Guy

Solution-specific Visio Discussions => Org Charting => Topic started by: karininwinnipeg on January 08, 2015, 01:12:57 AM

Title: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: karininwinnipeg on January 08, 2015, 01:12:57 AM
HI all.

I would like to create custom master shapes with custom fields, formatting (such as layer, colour, and locking width/height). I'm wondering if I can use these instead of Visio's built-in shapes with the wizard.

The other, related question I have is: I've seen (somewhere, can't find it now) a method to add a shape name in a data column (such as "manager") so that when the wizard creates the org chart from the data, the listed shapes are automatically used. How do you do this?

I'm using both 2010 and 2013.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: Yacine on January 08, 2015, 05:35:15 PM
Hi Karin,
Visio's built in addons rely on the name of a certain stencil. In this stencil are usually shapes with user.cells identifying them as part of this addon solution.
So if you want modified shapes, then best is to start from the originals.
But as everything can go wrong, you would start my making a SAFE copy of the original stencil, then modify the original stencil to your needs.
If anything goes wrong restore the original state using the copy.

HTH,
Yacine
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: karininwinnipeg on January 17, 2015, 07:14:55 AM
Thanks for the response, Yacine.

Question: What are "user.cells"? Is this a parameter/setting in the shapesheet of the shapes?
Clarification: When you suggest making a SAFE copy, do you mean saving the organization chart stencil in its entirety, saving that as a backup (and not changing it), and then modifying the original? Question: This implies that there is only ONE set of shapes in the ONE built-in stencil that comes with Visio that we can use in conjunction with the org chart wizard. Is this right?

Thanks!

Karin
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: Yacine on January 17, 2015, 11:13:12 AM
Hi Karin,
by user.cells I meant rows in the user section (see shapesheet). You will usually find some in shapes made by an addon.
For your "clarification", yes that's what I meant, but I'm not so in the integrated addon solutions of visio (I prefer to rely on self written code), so I don't really know if there is only one stencil involved in making the charts.
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: karininwinnipeg on January 18, 2015, 06:46:28 PM
Hello again.

QuoteBut as everything can go wrong, you would start my making a SAFE copy of the original stencil, then modify the original stencil to your needs.

It appears as though you cannot make modifications to an original stencil, at least not in any obvious way. Is there a way to "unlock" a built-in stencil so you can edit it?

Thanks,

Karin
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: Yacine on January 18, 2015, 08:05:09 PM
Hi Karin,
you're right, but you can copy the original stencil to a temporary directory, edit it there.
Rename the orginal stencil to ..._original.vss.
Copy the modified stencil back to the stencils directory.
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: karininwinnipeg on January 18, 2015, 09:10:48 PM
Hi Yacine.

I can't seem to find where Visio 2010 keeps its stencils. I have both 2013 and 2010 installed on my computer, and I found the 2013 stencils here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\Visio Content\1033

But when I did a search for .vss, I just came up with .vssx files (could that be because I have both versions installed?). Is there another location for the 2010 built-in stencils?

Thanks,

Karin
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: Yacine on January 18, 2015, 10:37:34 PM
Hi Karin,
I don't think I'm the right one to give you advices on V2010 and V2013. I'm still on V2007.
But from what I read, V2010 uses VSS as stencils.
Search for *.vss in your program directories and make sure to watch also the X86 directories.
Regards,
Yacine
Title: Re: Can you use custom shapes and/or designate what shapes are used with the Wizard?
Post by: wapperdude on January 19, 2015, 05:10:40 AM
Not in front of my computer, but 2010 products should be Office 14.

wapperdude.