Shape Sheet Tutorials or Books w/ Good Sections about Shape Sheets?

[silversage]

Does anyone know of any resources I can use to learn more about shape sheets? I know what they do and can manipulate them on a basic level, but I need more in-depth information about them. Specifically, for BPMN, I need to understand what the non-obvious shape sheet properties control and how to interpret the formulae I run into within those shape sheets. Some of the formulate look like VB code, which I don't understand. Some of them look like Excel formulae, which I understand.

I don't code, so any VBA reference material won't help, unless there are one or more sections in those reference guides that discuss shape sheet entries in a manner where I don't need to be a developer to understand it (references to methods, inheritance and such). I've looked at MS shape sheet reference resources, but like most MS references, they seem to assume one has prior knowledge to understand what they're talking about.

Specifically, I want to modify the behavior of the pool/lane object in the Basic BPMN Shapes stencil. Visio has a limitation that allows you to only create one level of lanes within a pool. I need to create lanes that will allow me to place lanes within lanes, so I can subdivide roles into sub-roles. I can do this within a tool like Enterprise Architect that fully supports the BPMN 2.0 specification, but the organization I'm consulting in right now won't allow that tool to be used due to security concerns with Sparx Systems' web site. So, I have to try to recreate some of that capability within Visio, if it's possible. MS took some shortcuts with Visio and doesn't fully support the BPMN 2.0 specification. I need to figure out how I can get around that.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Surrogate]

I can recomend to you books and resources from this thread

[wapperdude]

In addition, there's this link :  http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=842.msg39909#msg39909

The link by Surrogate references the foundational basis for Visio, probably the reference standard.  Newer texts typically don't rehash that material.  Some just give a very shallow idea of what Visio can do; others cover the new features of the later released in detail, especially with V2010 and "The Ribbon". 

After that, pretty much online stuff to get info on latest shapesheet fcns and coding examples and solutions.

You can search the forum, e.g., "book", or the internet for "Visio shapesheet functions" or Visio SDK  (once you get more established).

[Surrogate]

In my signature of forum's profile you can find a lot of hyperlinks for books, articles and videos!

[silversage]

Thanks wapperdude and Surrogate! Very helpful. Hopefully, I can find the information I need. I have a sneaking suspicion that modifying the behavior of pools and lanes will be "interesting", meaning not that easy.

[Surrogate]

PS in my opinion BPMN-behavior of some shapes are managed by some build-in add-on.
This add-on make changes to shapes ShapeSheet's cells.

[Bork]

 FYI, the two most referenced books on my Visio bookshelf are "Microsoft Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack" and "Developing Microsoft Visio Solutions (2001)."