Cannot Turn Snap or Glue

[wramshaw]

How can you turn off snap and glue completely? I have discovered that even
though I turn off snap and glue in the 'Tools' --> 'Snap & Glue' -->
'General' tab by unchecking both the 'Snap' and 'Glue' blocks, both remain
active. I have even tried zeroing out the 'Snap & Glue' settings under the
'Snap & Glue' 'Advanced' tab without success. No matter what I have tried,
both 'Snap & Glue' continue to remain active and interfere with my diagram.

Specifically, when I try to place a door or change its charateristics, it
snaps and glues into the nearest wall, even though I try to make it connect a
different way. The only work around that I have found is to place the door
then build the walls around the door. This seems to work but as a diagram
gets more complex it gets more and more difficult to disassemble the diagram
to place new doors or change the swing of the door.

I am experiencing other small anomalies also. A few web searches and a
complete review of other Microsoft Visio postings, has not uncovered anything
that is helpful.

Any help is appreciated. Having used many other drawing and diagraming
tools, I am fairly disappointed with Visio. Unfortunately another Microsoft
product that lacks good design. It lacks depth of controls and from what I
am experiencing has many small bugs that make drawing difficult.

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

I believe the building plan drawings have a different snap and glue
mechanism that is not controlled through the normal settings. You might try
turning off "Enable automation events" under Tools > Options > Security (or
Tools > Options > Advanced in older versions). Keep in mind that this will
potentially disable a lot more than just snapping in Visio. There are many
features that depend on this setting being enabled.

 

[wramshaw]

Mark,

Thank you for your help. I will give this approach a try and post back
a status.

FYI. I am using Visio 2003 with SP1 and all other patches loaded.

Thanks.

Bill

 

[wramshaw]

Mark,

You are a genius! Turning off "Enabling Automation events" stops the
building diagram from snapping together at inopportune times. What are some
of the other types of things that it disables?

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

In the Building Engineering, this enables wall intersection cleanup, area
calculations and smart dimensions. It also is required for creating Org
Charts, Timelines, Gantt Charts, Piping & Instrumentation diagrams and many
other drawing types. Quite a lot of Visio functionality is dependent on
automation events, so I would only disable it when you need to make specific
changes to your drawing.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

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

 

[wramshaw]

Mark,

Thank you for all your help. Visio is a good tool with the potential
to be a great tool. I hope as it goes through the various development cycles
that Microsoft will continue to improve it. My only concern is that the
innovation will stop. Having used many other drawing tools, needing to spend
time (and sweat) fighting with the Visio interface really frustrates the
average user. Fortunately you came to my rescue but it is counter-intuitive
to have walls that snap together and not have the 'Snap & Glue' function
control the feature. Several searches of the online help function and Google
searches did not uncover this interface setting. Without your kind help, I
would have never found that 'Automation Events' controlled this function.
Likely because I work for a software development company and manage software
engineers, I decided to pursue this issue rather than just accepting it as a
bug.

Again, your help is very much appreciated!

Thank You.

Bill

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

There is no worry that the innovation will stop. There are many many great
ideas for making Visio better. Check out some of the suggestions on these
newsgroups for starters.

One of the important things Visio must do to thrive is make sure that any
new innovation integrates seamlessly into the existing application. You see
below what happens when we fail to do this. Inconsistent implementation
creates confusion for users and significantly steepens the learning curve
for the application.

Visio has delivered some very powerful but not well integrated features in
previous releases. The current product team is commited to tighter and more
complete integration going forward. We've changed the way we organize our
teams and the way we develop our features to make this possible. Hopefully,
you will give us feedback on how we do. Also, please continue to point out
places where there are discontinuities in the current product. We can't fix
everything, but there may be some things that can be addressed.

--
Mark Nelson
Microsoft Corporation

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

 

[wramshaw]

Mark,

Thank you for your time explaining some of the various Visio interface
challenges to me. I actually spent a couple of hours reading many of the
posts in this forum. Some interesting views.

As I gain experience with Visio, I will revisit the forum to see if I
can find solutions.

Again, thanks.

Bill

 

[Richard Haven]

I suggested Visio to my wife for easy Interior Design drawings. It did not go
well.

I ended up using Dimension shapes to try and get things to go where they
should. We tried to use the Measure shape/tool, but it was far less useful
than the Dimension shape. It is not clear where the glue points are,
especially when it is narrower (smaller) than the text area.

The inability to turn off snap was particularly embarassing. Using Visio in
a situation where the scalar dimensions are the most important thing is
maddening because it will not accept those exact values (unless one happens
to be in the correct spot. I even made the grid fixed and tiny to no avail.

I could not use the X position because her measurments are between on door
and the next window, etc. I will try disabling Automation Events, but that is
such a kludge.

Also, the Door and Window shapes need a property so she can choose to
measure from the inside of the trim or the outside (outside is more common).

Thank you for your attention.

 

[wramshaw]

Richard,

Mark Nelson's response to me about turning off "Enable Automation
Events" helped a lot. You would think this feature would be controled by
Snap & Glue, but never the less, it gave me back the control of my drawings.
I also had similiar issues with the measurements. I finally concluded that
Visio is not really an architectural drawing tool in the truest sense.

As to specific answers to your questions, I would defer to someone from
the Microsoft team to address them. I found their help in my drawing effort
to be invaluable.

Thanks.

Bill