Constant Length Line and Chain

[Yacine]

Again the usual shapesheet magic. Very nice to look at.

[Yacine]

So, I took the time to look at your solution in depth.

Brilliant to use DEPENDSON to define the direction of the equation solving! There's a lot of potential in it.

But why is the formula "DEPENDSON('2WCLL.2'!EndX,'2WCLL.2'!EndY)" working
Why is Visio interpreting a string as correct reference for a cell?


Guess, that with a little bit of automation, one could setup mechanisms as I mentioned above.
A dialog to link shapes by writing the appropriate formulas in the "DEPENDSON" rows.

[JuneTheSecond]

Thank you Yacine!
It may not be working.
Because If you delete the DEPENDSON, there is no change in behavior!

[Yacine]

Because If you delete the DEPENDSON, there is no change in behavior!

Can you explain your statement?
I understood, that a two way calculation (dragging on each side independently requires the system to know in which way it has to calculate! If you're telling that deleting the DEPENDSON formulas doesn't change the behavior, then I wonder how the equations are solved.

[Yacine]

... and when I said that the DEPENDSON strategy has a lot of potential, I was thinking of a generic equation solver.
Some time ago, I tried to setup shapes to make calculations based on their connections and intermediate inputs.
The problem I was confronted with was that I wanted the calculation to be bi-directional: either you define the input and get the output, or you define the desired output and see what the necessary input would be. That's basically an equation solver.
I gave up after some time, because it involved too much external software.

I was hoping that the shapesheet solution you set up, with the dependson formulas could solve this problem.

[JuneTheSecond]

Yes, I believe you are right, but in this shape I recently found you can delete DEPENDSON.
I don't know why.
Here is an example drawing.
I am using Visio 2013 and saved this drawing as vsd.

[JuneTheSecond]

But why is the formula "DEPENDSON('2WCLL.2'!EndX,'2WCLL.2'!EndY)" working
Why is Visio interpreting a string as correct reference for a cell?

I do not know why, either. Visio translated in such a manner, when I entered like Sheet.3!EndX.
But Visio translated into SETATREF(CLL.2!EndX), when I entered in another shape like sheet.4!EndX.

Is it a matter of first character of the shape name, number or abc?

[JuneTheSecond]

I have updated shapesheet functions in constant length line.
DEPENDSON(Angle,Width)+SETF(GetRef(EndX),BeginX+......... 
into
DEPENDSON(Width)+SETF(GetRef(EndX),BeginX+.........
Because, I thought it is only when Width changed that needs to trigger next SETF function.
Now the behavior became more stable and the end point can now more strongly snap to other shape.

And I combined the constant length line with a circle, it behaves like a compass, a kind of drafting tool that is used when the Visio was not yet invented.

Here is a describing short video in YouTube.
Please enjoy.
https://youtu.be/h9pkUrR2hJo
And here is an example Visio drawing.

[ahawk11]

I like the idea of the line being perpendicular to the intersecting line and the worm line being extrapolated to correlate with the circle but I am wondering if it is at all possible to draw a copy of two lines and create a mirror image so that what you are seeing is essentially a duplicated bipartisan line inverted into a finite line? Just a thought...