Grouping Array Shapes

Started by kellogg, April 14, 2014, 02:55:15 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

kellogg

I'm creating a data centre floor grid by using the Array Shapes Visio Extra.

I draw one vertical line at the left edge of the room and one horizontal line at the bottom edge of the room. I then use the Array Shapes tool to repeat these lines with 600mm centres to fill up the room and form a grid. This grid is then assigned to a seperate layer from the rest of the drawing.

What I'd like to be able to do is group all the lines that form the grid together so that they can't accidently be moved or deleted when editing other parts of the drawing.

The only problem is, that as soon as I use the Group command the original vertical and horizontal lines stay put whilst the rest of the grid created using Array Shapes gets grouped and shifted out of the drawing area.

How do I keep the grid together and group all the indivisual lines?

If I use Array Shapes with 600mmx600mm squares they group perfectly well.

Unfortunately I can't use squares to represent the floor grid as it will confuse the program that this drawing will aventually be uploaded too.

Many thanks.

Yacine

A very funny behaviour, that I could replicate.
The array addon seems to have difficulties with 1D-shapes.
The attachment shows, that instead of difining the end points and setting the centers to formulas depending on the end points, it sets offsets in the end points and numerical values in the centers.
These faulty shapes cannot be moved, thus your reported problem.

To convert these shapes to proper 1D shapes, set their behaviour first to 2D, then back to 1D.
Join and Trim would have the same effect.

You can as well set a guide a the desired distance from the source shape, copy the source to the guide, then hit F4 (to repeat the copy operation) as often as necessary.


Yacine

wapperdude

Alas, I only have standard version available, so, no array shapes macro.

I suspect, that the macro places the new lines relative to some reference, such as the 1st two original lines, and that's based upon their page position.  However, once grouped, those references change from page relevant, to group relevant, and hence they shift.  Probably, you could open the shapesheet of the 2nd vert/horizontal lines, look at their pinx, piny cells, and change the entries to look at page position. 

Another option, which doesn't require grouping might be to place the lines on a background page.  Snapping will still work.  Then, you can always eliminate the background page by removing it from the drawing page setup properties.

Another option might be to use ruler guide lines and make an array out of them.  The guides typically aren't selectable unless you specifically click on it.  Thus, a "lasso" select method doesn't select them.  Of course, you could put the guides on the background page as above, and they still work fine.

HTH
Wapperdude
Visio 2019 Pro

kellogg

Thanks Yacine.

Converting too 2D worked a treat.