Shapes missing from document.

[Memnok]

Hi,

I've run into a strange issue where sometimes all the shapes on a page does not load correctly when opening a document.
It seems to be confined to a specific page, it can be a random shape or subshape on the page. Though I can not see anything special about this page compared to the other ones I have. There's about 80 pages in the document and this page has 806 shapes in it, total.

I've attached some pictures, of the problem. Closing the document and opening it again returns the shape. But if you're working on a different page and don't notice it and then save it's a hassle.

Anyone who has run into this before?

[Paul Herber]

Which version of Visio?

[Memnok]

Which version of Visio?

16.0.16501.20196
Is what the windows Apps & Features tell me

[wapperdude]

Not experienced this myself.  Is this a relatively new issue?  Might there be some trigger event...an update?  Added software?  After some editting?

One thing you might try is to remove any "junk" shapes that may have accumulated, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/reduce-the-size-of-a-visio-file-5f7af540-4fb8-4ec7-80a2-92bd7749e714.

Another cleanup possibility:   https://bvisual.net/2015/01/07/cleaning-visio-documents/

That's a lot of shapes on one page...building a mechanical computer?  LOL.  hope you have backup copirs.  Have you tried duplicating that page, and then deleting the original page?  Might be something about that page.

Have you considered segmenting that page into multple, smaller pages... if possible?  Anyway, those are thoughts that occur to me.

[Memnok]

Not experienced this myself.  Is this a relatively new issue?  Might there be some trigger event...an update?  Added software?  After some editting?

One thing you might try is to remove any "junk" shapes that may have accumulated, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/reduce-the-size-of-a-visio-file-5f7af540-4fb8-4ec7-80a2-92bd7749e714.

Another cleanup possibility:   https://bvisual.net/2015/01/07/cleaning-visio-documents/

That's a lot of shapes on one page...building a mechanical computer?  LOL.  hope you have backup copirs.  Have you tried duplicating that page, and then deleting the original page?  Might be something about that page.

Have you considered segmenting that page into multple, smaller pages... if possible?  Anyway, those are thoughts that occur to me.

Hi,

It's a relatively new issue. Been around for a few months, previously had another issue where sometimes connectors would not route correctly they way they were saved, they were still connected as they should but the lines went all over the page. Also fixed by reloading the document and seems to have disappeared lately as well. I can't think of anything that has triggered this, splitting the page into smaller sections is one of the thoughts that occurred to me. But i will try the cleaning methods you mention as well.

It's quite a bit of shapes, not quite a computer but it is an automotive electrical schematic that we use a plugin to compile all the information in the document and assign cavity components to the connector housings for BOM and other purposes.
Some of the shapes could certainly be improved to remove some subshapes, so I'll look into that as well.

[wapperdude]

Well.  Using Visio for what you're doing.  That's scary. The product price point is good, but there are attributes that are unattractive for commercial grade schematic drawing...most significantly, connector routing.  You guys are brave!

I get the visual continuity of having everything on single page.  But, seems like the page becomes so large or very densely packed, that viewing it all at once is not practical.  Doesn't seem like there's much gain to that approach. 

Is it possible to use a different computer and/or video card/monitor system to see if this is hardware induced behavior?

[vojo]

build this in a hierarchy
page 1:  Set of highlevel blocks for page 2,3,4,5
page 2:  details for 2
...
page 5   details for 5

if you really want all shapes on same page, make the shape groups less complex
(color code them with a legend, alias the group text IDs, etc)

[Memnok]

Well.  Using Visio for what you're doing.  That's scary. The product price point is good, but there are attributes that are unattractive for commercial grade schematic drawing...most significantly, connector routing.  You guys are brave!

I get the visual continuity of having everything on single page.  But, seems like the page becomes so large or very densely packed, that viewing it all at once is not practical.  Doesn't seem like there's much gain to that approach. 

Is it possible to use a different computer and/or video card/monitor system to see if this is hardware induced behavior?

We have actually viewed a few other commercial grade products but we have arrived at the conclusion that we already support most of what they do for a fraction of the price. And the learning curve is way smaller. But it would of course be nice to move to something else when we find something better. Seamless 3D integration is probably only thing that would improve upon the current way of working.

We have the issue on different computer with different hardware, so i don't think that is the problem. My best guess is that there are so many shapes that sometimes visio aborts the loading for taking too long, even though the document opens in about 30-40 seconds.

The schematic is actually very readable and easy to use, and there are not that much on each page. But the problem is that the original master shapes were not well made and contain some excess shapes from what they'd need to. I did a bit of cleaning and on a page with 397 shapes, i made new Pin and Terminal shapes and after doing that i'm down to 188 shapes on the page. And i can still make a new splice shape as well.

Using the insert field function is nice but the problem is haven't found another way to insert text fields on the shapes programmatically so i have to add in an extra shape to use as a callout text.

[hidden layer]

Using the insert field function is nice but the problem is haven't found another way to insert text fields on the shapes programmatically so i have to add in an extra shape to use as a callout text.

If you modify the master (instead of a placed shape) all spapes already placed will be updated.
Instead of callouts you can also use the comment field at the shapesheet. While hovering this will be shown.

[Memnok]

Using the insert field function is nice but the problem is haven't found another way to insert text fields on the shapes programmatically so i have to add in an extra shape to use as a callout text.

If you modify the master (instead of a placed shape) all spapes already placed will be updated.
Instead of callouts you can also use the comment field at the shapesheet. While hovering this will be shown.

Yes, I've been looking into this. I need to see how changing the master shape affects the existing shapes.
Using the comment field will not work because then the text will not show up when it's exported to a PDF. Also i'm not sure which coment field you mean, if it's the one on a control, i haven't found a way to link more than 1 text field to a control handle on a single shape.

[wapperdude]

Ah.  Light went on wrt number of shapes on a page.  Yes.  Those grouped shapes need to be efficiently built.  As you've discovered, the shape count can soar dramatically without even knowing it.

Yes.  Commercial grade products can be quite expensive.  We used them in our custom IC designs to get full coordination from schematic to simulation to layout.  Very pricey.  Not warranted in this scenario. 

To follow-up on editing document stencil masters.  These masters are only local to the document.  Editing them doesn't impact masters on any of the source stencils (vss, vssx files)

To follow-up on adding field inserted text programmatically, see this topic:  http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=5678.0

[hidden layer]

Hi,
I don't remember exactly but when I installed Acrobat DC on my computer there was an extra ribbon which provides some export functionalities (layers and comments for sure) . There was an annoying offset but at the end it works. I haven't this program for years so I cannot tell about this. With Visio-export this doesn't work anymore.

Yes there is only one textfield possible and as a workaround for this I use &CHAR(10)&CHAR(13)& between 2 shapesheet cells into another cell to make it look like 2 values.

cheers!
hl

[wapperdude]

See this for link to links to add multiple text lines with/without code:  http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=9180.msg40713#msg40713.  One of the links is same as that above. 

In the above link, reply #4 shows example of multiple field text lines; while last reply, #15, provides the code.

[Yacine]

Using the insert field function is nice but the problem is haven't found another way to insert text fields on the shapes programmatically so i have to add in an extra shape to use as a callout text.

If you modify the master (instead of a placed shape) all spapes already placed will be updated.
Instead of callouts you can also use the comment field at the shapesheet. While hovering this will be shown.

 

Yes, I've been looking into this. I need to see how changing the master shape affects the existing shapes.
Using the comment field will not work because then the text will not show up when it's exported to a PDF. Also i'm not sure which coment field you mean, if it's the one on a control, i haven't found a way to link more than 1 text field to a control handle on a single shape.

For many years I used the method similar to what hidden layer wrote and insert fields in the text of the shapes. The formula could become quite complex with many prop fields inserted. With IF clauses and so on. This was used for the tags of the "parts".
The texts were glued to control points and their orientation was set to be always horizontal regardless of the orientation of the shape.
Neat, but not enough.
Later on I got the need to add additional information that was not part of the tag. It needed to be switchable on/off. freely placeable.
So I modified the whole structure as follows.
- All shapes to be labeled had to be groups
- A macro would then insert a sub-shape with a proper name - e.g. "LabelTag" or "LabelComment"
to becontinued ... Need to leave




Continuation in red:
- Advantage: not only can you display data or user fields in these sub-shapes, but use them also as input method for longer texts. Specially comments
- I added furthermore a switch that works on 2 levels. On shape level you can switch the label on and off. On page level you can switch the levels of all the shapes on or off, plus a third option where you leave it to the shapes to display the content or not.

I cannot upload the whole solution, but if you are interested in certain snippets, just ask.

HTH,
Yacine

[Memnok]

Using the insert field function is nice but the problem is haven't found another way to insert text fields on the shapes programmatically so i have to add in an extra shape to use as a callout text.

If you modify the master (instead of a placed shape) all spapes already placed will be updated.
Instead of callouts you can also use the comment field at the shapesheet. While hovering this will be shown.

Yes, I've been looking into this. I need to see how changing the master shape affects the existing shapes.
Using the comment field will not work because then the text will not show up when it's exported to a PDF. Also i'm not sure which coment field you mean, if it's the one on a control, i haven't found a way to link more than 1 text field to a control handle on a single shape.

For many years I used the method similar to what hidden layer wrote and insert fields in the text of the shapes. The formula could become quite complex with many prop fields inserted. With IF clauses and so on. This was used for the tags of the "parts".
The texts were glued to control points and their orientation was set to be always horizontal regardless of the orientation of the shape.
Neat, but not enough.
Later on I got the need to add additional information that was not part of the tag. It needed to be switchable on/off. freely placeable.
So I modified the whole structure as follows.
- All shapes to be labeled had to be groups
- A macro would then insert a sub-shape with a proper name - e.g.
to becontinued ... Need to leave

Yes, they way i've done it so far is to insert a master shape into the group (Because all our connectors are groups consisting of Pin shapes), and give it a name so i know what it is referencing (ref designator, description and so on). And then settings the MSVCalloutField to reference the value in the other shape. Like Sheet.1001!Prop.Pin

But there's definitely been some good suggestions here, that i will be looking into.