You can change the row type on a connection point?? Never knew that! Having learned that, of course I had to immediately open a shapesheet, add every possible section, then check to see which ones allow for a change of row type.
Other than Geometry, it appears the only sections that allow it are Connection Points and Controls, but neither makes any sense to me. For Connection Points, why not always just display the D cell? What value is there in being able to turn it on and off? For Controls, all it does is enable the Tip cell so you can define hover text for the control point. But setting the Tip cell to No Formula vs. ="Your Tip Text" does the same thing, and is much more intuitive.
There's also the issue of functional consistency across the three sections that allow it. Only Geometry actually changes the row type; the second adds a cell, and the third enables/disables a cell. Go figure.
I'd find it much more useful if they would simply add a scratch cell to each row in every section containing multiple rows, such as User-defined, Shape Data, Hyperlinks, Actions, Action Tags, Controls, and Layer Memberships. There have been times when I've had to functionally link a row in one section to a row in another section, but do the linkage programmatically. A scratch cell would be a cleaner approach.
For example, in Vickey's situation (if I understand it correctly) you could use the connection point's D cell to hold the name of the type of connection, either "boolean" or "continuous". Then, when the Add Connection event fires, check to see if it's allowed or not. If not, add a small delta to the X/Y endpoint of the line to push it aside. That way every time you try to connect, say, an electric line to a gas line, it automatically tosses the line endpoint aside and breaks the connection. No need for a background process continually running.
- Ken
P.S. It's been a few years since I last posted. Been busy with managerial positions, but now I'm back in the Visio trenches where I belong. Good to be back!
