Control handle remake

[gunslingor]

So I made this custom shape out of the free riverbed stencil + the free VSDx stencil. I pretty much needed to change the perspective on the free riverbed shape, so I took off the face plate and plopped it on my standard switch shape and resized certain portions (so that perspectives weren't different). Everything is good with this shape and ready to go, except that the bounding box or control handles look a little bit wacky, see how they are smaller than the actual shape.

I took a look at the controls section of the shape sheet and it doesn't even exist, isn't this where that bounding box is defined?

Any help is appreciated, I can't find any documentation online that's directly related to what I am trying to fix.

[aledlund]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a visio drawing (with the shape in it so we can access the shapesheet) is worth a book.
al

[MacGyver]

I often wish there was an up vote option on this form so others could enjoy posts (such as aledlund's previous post)  filled with such humor and wisdom.

[Paul Herber]

Just ask Chris nicely and he might install:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1890

[Paul Herber]

With the shape, the problem is that now the group contents exceed the group boundaries.
Simple to fix (if you know how):
Open the main shape, using the drawing tools draw a short simple line within the area of the shape you want, go back to normal mode by selecting the Pointer. Control-A to select all, (the exact details now depend upon your Visio version) - Group -> Add to Group. Now open the group, delete the line you added, exit and save. There might be a simpler way ...

[wapperdude]

Another method that ought to work...

The "bounding box" is the alignment box for the group.  Every shape has an alignment box, but it's not part of the control section, (or any section for that matter).  If you resized the subshapes after you made the group, then the group alignment box won't match what you see.  Select the group (as you show), then in V2007, go to menu bar > shapes > operation > update alignment box.  (Not sure where this is in V2010.)

Note, sometime pictures, especially with transparent backgrounds, can have large alignment boxes.  Use the crop tool to cut the overall size of the picture to reduce its alignment box.

HTH.
Wapperdude

[Paul Herber]

ah yes. In Visio 2010: Developer -> Operations -> Update Alignment Box

[gunslingor]

Hey guys, thanks for the info and sorry I haven't been back in a while... I never found a solution.

Everything you guys are talking is helpful, but every method you all talk about requires the use of a group... but I have found that there can be performance issues with groups, so I was trying not to use any in this instance since my shape is pure (no images).

To get more specific, I'm thinking specifically regarding the "generate web page" functionality. Regardless of the options you select here, when you create the webpage Visio makes a lot of desions. Ultimately these desions result in a) a VML type file for storing all the information needed to redraw the file (mainly connectors and basic shapes and coordinates for placing pngs), and b) a lot of png type files that store all the images. Now, everything I've done indicates that all groups are converted to pngs... which can often be quite large and seriously hinder performance. The information needed to redraw the shape, conversely, is tiny in comparison to storing the shape as a png. Plus, why waste time trying to draw it out in Visio if the final product is a png? I could've done all that in GIMP or Illustrator, had more control over the size and ultimately a better png would result.

So the shape in the screen shot I sent has no groups, just a pure visio drawing in the shapes master window... I've tried converting this to webpage and yes... only the VML was generated, no pngs except the basic stuff like the thumbnail. However, I then opened the master window, grouped the shape, updated the alignment box (worked), and tried to resave as a webpage... now there is a 350KB png in there. Considering a drawing with 25 custom shapes, that in itself will put my webpage at about 10MB.

So, to make a long story short.. is there a way to explicitely define the bounding box? Am I missing something?

I do not know how groups are handled in sharepoint, anyone know? We are probably going to use the sharepoint interface instead of the webpage since its just not that great.

[gunslingor]

Alright, here is a file with a bunch of custom shapes I've made:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B71fEvZJKoXBMlBTRlZ5bG1ORUk/edit?usp=sharing

Some have problems, others seem to work perfectly... Problems:
1. the riverbend device bounding box is odd.... it resizes fine.
2. the Dominion KVM bounding box is odd.... and it doesn't resize correctly.

All others appear to work fine... but they were all made by me using similar methods... what am I doing wrong? Where are the improvements?

[Paul Herber]

1. The Riverbed shape, just use the Operations -> Update Alignment Box manu as stated earlier.
2. The storage Tek shape, for some reason it's a 1 dimensional shape, so bounding boxes are different and don't really apply.
3. The other odd shape, just called Sheet.1 is a grouped shape. Use the Drawing explorer window to look at the constituent parts of the shape. You will see various parts of the shape extending beyond the normal shape boundaries. These are the parts of the shape that are making the shape boundary what they are.

[gunslingor]

1. Thanks, that worked... strange I thought I already tried that... pretty darn sure I did. It seems that, if you copy and paste from one drawing to another (in regards to this fairly complicated shape), Visio also seems make some decisions and create some groups (true for #3 as well). Strange. Anyway, it works perfectly now so I aint touchin it.
2. Yeah, that one was done a bit differently for some reason... I rushed thru it, plan on making something nicer later.
3. This one took hours to correct. There were two main problems that, once resolved, corrected all issues.
-Bounding Box overflow: there were 2 shapes that were invisible or something... just a bound box essentially.. no idea what this was about but when I deleted them, the bounding box was perfect. Note that no groups were used. I think the master window itself acts as a sort of group, but it is a different type of group than a typical group; Specifically, it doesn't get convertered to png as typical groups do when creating a web page.
-Resize issue, two arcs move around and bend wrong on resize: I finalliy found the right post (http://www.visguy.com/2008/04/28/understanding-arc-resize-problems-in-visio/). The problem was that these two arcs had interaction styles set to 1D (behavior window)... once changed to 2D everything worked perfectly. Strange though because I have other arcs in the shape that were set to 2D, wonder why these were set to 1D (the only difference was that these were drawn more vertically and the 2D ones were drawn more horizontally). Anyway... I'm set, thanks for the help and lessons learnt!!!!!

 

[gunslingor]

Yeah, no question about it.. Visio automatically makes groups on occation. Like when you build a shape in one drawing without groups... then copy/paste or drag/drop it to a new drawing... a group is created, a least for my pure and compicated shapes.

Anyway, yeah the 2 problems above were the main issues screwin with my shapers.