Rotate Angle Connectors

Started by Darryll, April 12, 2010, 10:59:15 AM

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vojo

A) its much easier to change the white background on those  (I made mine thinner to stuff)
B) with all the colors floating around...you will want wite out line in case is dark blue connector (or even black) on a really dark blue background

Honestly, there is a lot of usability issues you might want to think thru on this...especially if you build them yourself for others to use.

Jumpy

#31
The problem, that vojo sees, is that you need to have a set of different connectors. There will be no universal connector to connect shapes from all directions. That would be to complicated to build. So instead to make that Connector-Set you'll need from scratch it might be easyier to use Junes stuff as a base to start from.

Just to try it out I bulid a 3-line connector (based on Yacines drawing) that you can use to connect From a shape (left/right/top/bottom side) to other shapes (but only left and right side).
It won't be possible to build a line around shapes, that you don't want to connect to and it was a difficult to create (look at the formulas)(needed 2 hours of thinking)(but was fun).

To get another line you need 1 more control point, 3 more user defined cells for calculations, and a new geometry section using the result of those calculations.

vojo

the possibilities...VSD is way too big for here...but this gives the idea

vojo

RE jumpy.....and June figured that all out via allowing connectors to attach to each other and track movement...
aka if you want 7 stair step connector....take 7 of them and attach end to end...group...and save in a stencil...pertinent ones will track to pertinent control points

Darryll

Thanks. I'll give it a try. Its the best way to learn. :)

Yacine

#35
Hi Darryl,
first of all let me leave a remark and then forget about it. I misliked your tone, that's not the way I expected to get an answer from you.  You have obviously not checked my posted attachments >:(

Now back to the problem:

1) I meant it seriously, when I recommended to shear the exported bitmap. As you'll have noticed from the many replies, what is needed is a universal connector and whilst Visio's is not perfect, it is still so sophisticated that you will most probably not surpass it. And be sure, that when you'll have presented your 5 points connector, the first user will ask  for a 6 points one.

So the idea, is to draw the diagram in regular visio manner and once finished, run a macro, that will export the file as bitmap image, run the image processing program with the files name and the script as arguments, transform the image and at will import on an additional page in Visio. That is a practicable way.

2) Now, as we enthousiastically play with your problem, why not approach it from another way - Still keeping in mind that visio's connector is very good and that it should be used for the task.
If you happen to be one of the lucky ones to work already with V2010 (I'm not  :'( ) , you have access to the vertices of your connectors.
Read this article. With this info, you can hide the actual connector and draw the visible one with inclined lines for the vertical segments and horizontal ones, for the others.

3) Vojo suggests the use of groups of simpler "Yoda" shapes. That's very good.
Watch my post on duplicated shapes here and here that could be a feasable approach.
Yacine

Darryll

Quote from: Yacine on April 15, 2010, 07:58:58 PM
Hi Darryl,
first of all let me leave a remark and then forget about it. I misliked your tone, that's not the way I expected to get an answer from you.  You have obviously not checked my posted attachments >:(

Yacine,

I've reread all of my posts and I'm not sure of what tone you are referring to. If I have presented myself in any fashion other than thankfulness and gratitude for the help I have received from all posters, then I regret doing so. It was never my intention.

Yacine

QuoteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Cheesy
I left this morning 15 min too late for work, because I wanted to show you my thoughts ;) and was accordingly disapointed, when I read your answer.

Peace  ;D
Yacine

Darryll

The laugh was meant to show that I loved the genius and simplicity of the image shear idea.  ;D

Yacine

#39
Mon Oeil.

New trial?
Those are Junichi's isometric bows in a group.
You'll notice that the arrow of the last line needs to be set manually by "double single clicking"  ;) the last segment. Setting the arrow for the whole group will set it to all the segments. It seems like I discovered a visio bug here. Refering to the endarrow property of an other shape returns 0! Or am I doing something wrong?
2nd: A lot of BOUNDs and IFs would be necessary to avoid the ugly overlaps, when a control point leaves the area between it's 2 neighbours.

Enjoy.
Yacine

Yacine

had to add this one. ... I know it's silly. ;D
Yacine

Darryll

Incredible! I like the artwork!

Will be spending the rest of the day investigating the functions and techniques used to create this. Thanks!

How do I make the ends of the connectors snap to the objects?

vojo

they snap to any connection point you approach.   And much more importantly, if you move a shape with a connection point that this attaches to, the connector
follows and scales as appropriate (you can use the control handle to adjust after you move it if you need to).

So for the picture I included, in the blade and switch shapes, there arrays of connection points.   So the following works well
- drop a blade
- drop a switch
- drop a connector
- attach one end to blade...other to switch
- use control to set the middle span as appropriate (I did not just get lucky with all that "traffic" in the middle)
- format as you see fit.
- move blade or switch as needed...connector tracks to it....repeat the control step as needed

Like I said, there is a real wealth of knowledge in those shapes

Darryll

Quote from: vojo on April 16, 2010, 12:54:25 PM
they snap to any connection point you approach.   And much more importantly, if you move a shape with a connection point that this attaches to, the connector
follows and scales as appropriate (you can use the control handle to adjust after you move it if you need to).

Are you referring to the example provided by Yancine? The ends Snap to Geometry but they don't stick the object handle. If you move the object, it doesn't move with it.
Are you referring to another example? :-\

Jumpy

You have to enable glueing to object handles global for the drawing.