Visio doesn't find any shapes when searching from the Shapes Pane

[David.P]

Hi forum,

for the life of me I can't seem to find out how to make Visio find any shape in my large shape collection.

The shapes are in lots of subfolders below this path
F:\Programme\Microsoft Office\Visio11\1031\Lösungen

All shape collections are shown in the menu under File -> Shapes, and all shapes can be opened from there. The indexing option in Visio is turned on and the Windows XP Index Service is running, showing the following status (sorry for the W I D E screenshot):



Any ideas why Visio doesn't find any shape?

Thanks heaps already for any help
David.P

PS: Here's the link to the entire screenshot.

[Paul Herber]

I don't think Visio can search in the file path you use. It only searches the My Shapes path and an "undisclosed" location on the internet. Even so, I have a shape called "fire diamond" in my My Shapes path, it even has "fire diamond" as a search term set for the shape. It doesn't get found!

[David.P]

I don't think Visio can search in the file path you use. It only searches the My Shapes path and an "undisclosed" location on the internet.

...but I have entered the path to the shapes in the respective Visio option:

[Paul Herber]

Yeah, I know, the stencil can be open with the shape in full view, but Shape Search will not find it.

[David.P]

I wouldn't think so -- since first, the standard shape collections are not stored in the "MyShapes" folder but in the program folder (and still they are indexed, although not in my case), and second, I just tried and moved all shapes into the MyShapes folder. But still nothing gets found by Visio.

[Visio Guy]

Shape search drives me nuts because I think I've gotten it to work maybe 3 times in all of these years. Or it just doesn't work very well.

I know that the map shapes are in there somewhere. But type in USA and see what you get. Type Washington, and you get a result. Type Ohio, you get a result. But nothing for USA, U.S.A. or America. Ok, I just typed United States and got everything. Nice indexing.

Since my internet connection just got interrupted while searching for United States, and Shape Search choked, but then found all the states when the connection resumed, I can be pretty sure that the shapes came from the web. Pretty neat, but it's not Google Search!

Anyway, the Schablone Pfad (Stencil Path) that you have entered was originally intended so that your stencil paths show under the File > Shapes (Datei > Shapes) menu. I think this still works in the new versions.

That your shapes in these paths aren't searched by Shape Search doesn't surprise me at all. But I can't say for sure.

[Jumpy]

I have the same problem. Created many shapes on many stencils. Thought it was a good idea to index them and give each master the meta-data needed for the search. I placed my stencils everywhere (except online) - they were never found by Shape Search. IMHO that tool is crap for your own applications. It's only usefull to search for good(?) shapes or ideas for shapes on the internet and the original Visio Shapes.

[David.P]

Actually Visio not only fails to find any of my CUSTOM shapes -- it rather doesn't find ANY shape, not even the out-of-the-box shapes.



Here's a few more screenshots from Registry Editor regarding shape search settings:



Maybe someone with a Visio copy where shape search DOES work can have a look at these registry values and compare them to their own settings. This way, a setting that might prevent a working shape search possibly could be identified.

[Paul Herber]

Do you have Shape Search setup correctly?

[Paul Herber]

All your registry settings look fine to me. Beware though that just because the registry has a certain setting, it doesn't mean that Visio is using that setting!

[David.P]

My shape search options:

[Paul Herber]

Try selecting "Alle Standorte" (English = Everywhere)
Maybe then disable Internet.

[JuneTheSecond]

By the way, V 2010 beta seems has not the option for the search locations.

[David.P]

Try selecting "Alle Standorte" (English = Everywhere)
Maybe then disable Internet.

Thanks -- but that did't change anything

[Paul Herber]

Do you have a firewall that is blocking Visio from accessing the internet?