Visio 2010 Shapes Panel

Started by mnorton, August 11, 2021, 03:18:27 PM

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mnorton

Good morning,

I seem to have a common problem (going by web searches) however nothing suggested has worked, so I'm hoping there's someone here who has run into this problem before.  I didn't even notice right away, but I've been working on an FPGA block diagram and my shapes panel has disappeared.  Not to worry, there's usually a way to get it back. 

So, the normal method for this is to go to the View >> Task Panes >> Shapes and click it back on.  However, it's gone and it is highlighted which suggests Visio thinks it's displaying it:
https://imgur.com/a/fv5vUtn (I tried to get the image to embed, but nothing I tried worked, so I put it on imgur and here's the link.  I'll try saving it to a file too.)

My next thought is that the panel has become undocked somehow.  However since this is a child window, it doesn't show up in Task Manager, cannot be alt-tabbed to.

I went to AppData/Local/Microsoft/Visio and deleted everything there in order to try to return the program to its initial layout state.  No joy.

Is there a configuration file I need to edit to redock the shapes panel?  It's gone for all new drawings and all old drawings.  This is pretty frustrating.

I added the Shapes toggle to the main ribbon and it shows it being active (much like the toggle in Task Panes) however it's not being shown.

Here's hoping someone has run into this.

Best regards,
Mark Norton

Surrogate

Hi, Mark !
Do you use float "Shapes window" ? Just try docked this window !
Quote from: mnorton on August 11, 2021, 03:18:27 PM
I added the Shapes toggle to the main ribbon and it shows it being active (much like the toggle in Task Panes) however it's not being shown.
I use hotkeys Alt+W+V+S

mnorton

#2
Well, I didn't intend to float the window.  However, there appears to be no floating window anywhere on the screen.  I have tried changing the window resolution to see if if it was out there if I could force pop it back onto the desktop but it never showed up. 

I honestly don't know how to reset it back onto the screen at this point.  I'll try that hotkey but I'm not wildly hopeful.

Just tried it out.  It does seem to be the key that operates the widget at View >> Task Panes >> Shapes and it will toggle that icon highlighted or not, but it doesn't make the panel show up.

And I see what you've got on that Shapes panel, but I think that's a later version of Visio (this is 2010).  They didn't use the "slide out" style of widget and it's more of an anchored subwindow rather than a tray.

I wish I could figure out where this information was stored, I'd be happy to delete registry items or configuration files or edit files, but I may never have Shapes ever again at this rate.

Surrogate

Quote from: mnorton on August 12, 2021, 04:05:44 PMAnd I see what you've got on that Shapes panel, but I think that's a later version of Visio (this is 2010).
Yes, i use Visio 2019. I used the version Visio 2010 from 2011 to 2017, but I never encountered these problems.

wapperdude

Seems unlikely, but worth mentioning:

First, do you have that side panel where various Visio features reside?  If not, try adding the Drawing Explorer.  It should show up.

Second, if you have the side panel, is it empty?  For example, are the Size and Position, and Drawing Explorer Windows present.  If so, these can be manually sized.  It might be that the Shapes Window is hidden by these.

Visio 2019 Pro

Surrogate

Quote from: wapperdude on August 12, 2021, 04:52:52 PMFirst, do you have that side panel where various Visio features reside?  If not, try adding the Drawing Explorer.  It should show up.
Beginning with version Visio 2010 Drawing Explorer Window can be seen only if the Developer mode is activated.


MS Visio. Show Drawing Explorer Window

mnorton

I appreciate all the eyeballs on this.  Losing hope though.  Things I have done since last post:
1) Turned off the 2nd display. 
2) Resized display to 800x600, then resize back up to recommended (something largish) to see if I could make a floating child panel visible.
3) Saved the document I was working on with "NO saving desktop environment" and then moving to a PC with Visio 2019.  On that machine, the shapes showed up just fine.  I turned saving desktop environment back on, resaved the file, and moved it back to the original PC (Visio 2010) -- No luck, shapes panel did not rematerialize.  Honestly not wildly surprised.  Visio seems to think the shapes panel is ON -- it's just not visible.
4) Perused through the registry to see if I could find some setting for Shapes window x, y location.  Didn't find anything (though the registry is huge and hard to search so it's still possible its there).
5) Uninstalled Visio 2010.  After uninstalling went into the Users directory and in AppData searched for Visio and deleted all directories and references to Visio.
6) Reinstalled Visio 2010.  Opened a blank document and the shapes panel is not visible.  I took some screenshots at this point.
    a) I turned EVERYTHING ON that I could think of.  The shape data is visible, Drawing explorer, Size and Position, and Pan and Zoom.  This shows the 2010 widget style and also shows that shape data isn't docked anywhere.
    b) I hovered the mouse over the View >> Task Panes and took a screen snippet shot to show that all the things turned on and "Shapes" are highlighted to give some context.

I am really at a loss here.  I looked through the Customization command panel looking for anything that would reset all window layouts to default but nothing.  Honestly if reinstalling it doesn't fix it, there's something stored someplace in Office that's keeping this persistent and I'm even afraid if I were to get my organization to buy a newer version of the tool, it might try to take Shapes and move it off into the ether again!

Unfortunately I know nothing about scripting Visio -- perhaps there's a command that permits manipulation of the UI elements.  I honestly don't know.  This is getting supremely frustrating and I can't even get Microsoft to support it because it's too old (though again -- kind of afraid that newer versions might obey whatever setting has gotten set for this window and even a new version wouldn't work though at least I could badger Microsoft for whatever good that might do.)

Anyhow, I do appreciate all the thoughts.  If someone has another notion, I'm game.

Best regards,
Mark


Surrogate

Now i have not PC with Visio there. Just as idea, try close or move Shape Data window, in the left part of application window. May be the Shapes Pane is located below this window.

mnorton

AHH I got it!  I took another stab at the registry.  I started searching for resetting Microsoft defaults and I found an article that stepped through resetting Word and there were enough breadcrumbs to find the location in the registry.  First 2010 is version 14.0 in Microsoft parlance.  So in case anyone else finds themselves in this pit of despair, here are the steps (doesn't require reinstallation.)

1) Open regedit -- this will require administrative priveleges and there'll be a Windows raised access dialog box about this.
2) Go to:  Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0
3) Step through all options.  Definitely delete ..\Office\14.0\Visio in its entirety however there are a few other registry key entries under Common and User Settings. 
4) Delete all Visio categories.  If the whole group is named Visio, delete it.  If not, delete the specific keys with Visio in it.
5) Close regedit.
6) Start Visio 2010
7) Start a new document -- Should now hopefully see the Shapes panel on the left as usual. 

There are still some side effects... shapes search got deleted I think, but there's probably an option to turn that back on somewhere.

Anyway, hope that can help someone's misery, and I still greatly appreciate all the eyeballs on this topic.  Honestly didn't even think I'd get any answers.

Best regards,
Mark

Surrogate


May be this resource about Visio registry settings can help you ?


I use shape search only in version 2003. I cant setup indexing at my pc, because i have not admin role there :(
May be this thread can helps ?
Visio 2013 - Search local shapes not working ? (microsoft.com)

mnorton

Turns out that shape search just required clicking the little option at the top of the Shapes panel and then it reappeared. 

However that registry index is AMAZING.  I'm bookmarking that for later perusal.  Glad someone documented it -- getting and doing anything in the registry is a pain in the butt.  A few old *.ini files would be a lot more power user friendly.

Thanks!