Grouping Containers and Lists

[gregj]

Visio gurus,

I'm trying to present some data as a visio diagram. The data can change rapidly as teams meet and discuss the content. After building, arranging and re-arranging the data numerous times using traditional visio shapes I stumbled across the visio list functionality. At first glance this seemed like it could streamline the editing and rearranging process, and appeared enticing.

The data consists of a table of categories. Each category contains a "current view" and a "target view". The current and target views are described by a simple series of shapes.

My initial attempt consisted of:
1. creating a large box to contain the categories; converted to a vertically-arranged list - as per: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visio/archive/2010/01/12/custom-containers-lists-and-callouts-in-visio-2010.aspx
2. creating a category group, which contained two box shapes converted to horizontal lists to serve as the "current view" and "target view", and an arrow shape between them.
3. dragging the category group into the vertical list from step #1 and using the list controls to create new category rows

Those steps basically work. However, subsequently dragging shapes into the "current view" or "target view" horizontal lists does not. I presume this is because the lists are part of a group - visio is not identifying the shapes as lists.

So, I tried the following:
1. as above, creating a large box to contain the categories; converted to a vertically-arranged list
2. creating a category container and arranging the current and target view lists inside the container
3. dragging the container into the vertical list from #1, using the list controls to duplicate it

I run out of luck in step #3 here - when I ask the list to duplicate the container it only creates the shell for me - the container's contents are not duplicated.

Anyone had any success with grouped lists or containers? Or lists containing complex shapes?

Many thanks for reading!
g