Can updates on one page filter down to other pages?

[Mike]

Hi. I'm designing a series of mockups in Visio for a user interface. One of
my files has several pages in it, each one showing different aspects of the
interface. Unfortunately, as I continue, I make tweaks and modifications to
the new pages here and there that I then have to go and repeat on each of the
previous pages (to maintain consistency).

Is there a way to build a "template" of sorts that I can use as the basic
interface design across multiple pages, such that if I make changes to that
template, those changes will propagate across all pages using it? I guess the
function would be somewhat similar to Powerpoint's "view master" function,
which lets you modify several pages at once by making changes just to the
master. Is there an analogous function in Visio? Does it involve the Visio
programming functions (with which I am pretty much unfamiliar)?

Thanks for any help,
Mike

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Visio definitely has masters. Those are the shapes you drag out from
stencils into your document. You could combine several shapes together and
create a new master from them. Go to File > Shapes > New Stencil or File >
Shapes > Show Document Stencil to open an editable stencil. Then drag your
assembly of shapes from the drawing to the stencil. You can double-click
the master shape to edit it, and changes will be propagated to your drawing.

Another useful feature is background pages. You could create your basic
workspace mock-up on a background page and reuse it with many foreground
pages. You put more changeable elements on the foreground page. We use
this technique internally to create user interface walkthroughs. A
background page contains the full workspace UI. Then foreground pages are
created with just the pieces of the UI that are changing as the "user"
works. The whole set of pages is played as a presentation in full screen
mode. Go to File > Page Setup > Page Properties to set up foreground and
background pages. Go to the View menu for full screen mode.

 

[Mike]

Visio definitely has masters. Those are the shapes you drag out from

stencils into your document. You could combine several shapes together and
create a new master from them. Go to File > Shapes > New Stencil or File >
Shapes > Show Document Stencil to open an editable stencil. Then drag your
assembly of shapes from the drawing to the stencil. You can double-click
the master shape to edit it, and changes will be propagated to your drawing.

Really? So I could have a whole "interface" be a draggable shape stored in a
stencil? Cool. Thanks.

 

[Mike]

Mark,

Hi. OK, I've figured out how to create and modify a master now. However,
none of the changes I make to the master seem to get applied to instances of
it that already exist on the page. I double-clicked the master to edit it,
made a change, closed the master window, a dialog asked me if I wanted to
update the master shape, and I said yes. Any new instances of the shape that
I create will then have the changes, but none of the changes show up in
previous instances. Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Two possible issues:

1) The existing shapes are really not instances of your master. Go to
Format > Special to check this. If the master is not listed, then the
shapes are independent. You'll need to drop new shapes from the master.

2) You locally overrode the setting that you are changing in the master.
For example, if you selected a shape instance and made the fill color Red,
changing the fill color of the master to Blue will have no effect on that
shape. To fix this, you need to open the Shapesheet for the instance, find
the cell for the property you are setting and put an equals sign in the
cell. This will restore the property inheritance from the master.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.