SmartShape - Maintaining Connectivity

[jsuhayda]

Greetings...

Thank you in advance for any assistance!  I am attempting to create a custom shape (out of three individual shapes ) that can stretch horizontally, while maintaining the aspect ratios of the angles at the edge, and all staying completely connected.  The attached file more accurately demonstrates the problem when stretching or shrinking the horizontal distance.

I locked in the size\angle of the edge shapres utilizing the GUARD variable.  I have attempted to keep them connected utilizing the PINX formula, but whilst I can keep the initial placement, on stretch it still moves apart.

Most Appreciated!

JS

[wapperdude]

Could you resend the file as vsd rather than vsdx?  Some of us, never upgrade  V2007 ...   

Wapperdude   

[Yacine]

@ jsuhayda, http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=7120.msg29936#msg29936
@Wapperdude, see attachment.

[wapperdude]

Thanks Yacine.

In addition to what Yacine indicates, couple of observations, with attached examples. 
It doesn't seem that your shape needs to be grouped at all.  The very same could be accomplished in a single shape, which is inherently more efficient.  The trick is to recognize that Visio does things based upon shape width/height.  To keep the corner chamfer constant, you need to set the delta-X = delta-Y.  To keep the size constant, then you have to set delta-X, delta-Y based upon the dimension that doesn't change.  Shape1 does this using height as the constant.

To make the shape smarter, you could introduce a parameter that, for example, choses the smaller of the two dimensions, that is, whichever is smaller, width or height.  This provides greater flexibility.  See Shape2.

You could use a bound function to limit the min / max sizing, e.g., min(bound(X dim),bound(Y dim)). 

Finally, you could introduce a shapedata variable, and let that set the value.

HTH
Wapperdude

[jsuhayda]

@Yacine @Wapperdude....

Many thanks for your responses and examples.  I am hoping to take your helpful information and apply them to a new shape.  It is clear to me that Visio is even more powerful ( and complex ) than I already thought it was.

Thank you!