color theme in Gantt Chart

[nanoman]

Hi;
I built a Gantt chart. Looked good except for the shading in the shapes was
to dark. So I selected the cells, picked format color fill, and fine. Then I
added some new tasks and had to fill some more shapes. Finally it dawned on
me that there is a theme in place and I'm working against it. So I try
filling back cells with white, I try turning them transparent. Nothing will
work, I have screwed up the uniformity amongst the shapes (I really want to
call them cells since it's like a spread sheet).
The only thing I can think to do is to re-do the entire chart. I don't
understand what's going on in the background that kept me from un-doing the
problem. I wish the automation behind charts like Gantt were at least visible
so someone like me wouldn't paste over (or fill in this case) something that
has something behind the scenes. The whole chart is automated, but I don't
know where the code is. I been all over every control.
Insight Please

 

[Paul Herber]

Hi;
I built a Gantt chart. Looked good except for the shading in the shapes was
to dark. So I selected the cells, picked format color fill, and fine. Then I
added some new tasks and had to fill some more shapes. Finally it dawned on
me that there is a theme in place and I'm working against it. So I try
filling back cells with white, I try turning them transparent. Nothing will
work, I have screwed up the uniformity amongst the shapes (I really want to
call them cells since it's like a spread sheet).
The only thing I can think to do is to re-do the entire chart. I don't
understand what's going on in the background that kept me from un-doing the
problem. I wish the automation behind charts like Gantt were at least visible
so someone like me wouldn't paste over (or fill in this case) something that
has something behind the scenes. The whole chart is automated, but I don't
know where the code is. I been all over every control.
Insight Please

The Gantt chart is a very complicated set of shapes, it also has an addon associated with
it that controls much of the shape's behaviour, the contents of this addon is not
accessible to the user.
I'll take a guess that it is the task part of the shape (the blue line) that you have
modified. If it's another part then you will have to asdjust the instructions
appropriately.
The task part of the shape is itself a complicated grouped shape.

Start a new Gantt chart diagram, then open the drawing explorer (menu View -> Drawing
Explorer Window). Expand the Foreground Pages to get to page 1, then expand shapes to see
all the shapes that have been put on the page for this one Gantt chart. Scroll down to the
area where the Task bar shapes are, if you have the default Gantt chart then there will be
5 of these, 4 of which have a number after the Task bar name. Clicking each of these 5
entries will highligth one of the Task bar shapes on the page. Expand the first of these
and you will see that it is made up of several shapes, select the second one of these,
then right-click and choose Show Shapesheet. This will open the shapesheet window for this
shape.
Scroll down to the section called Fill Format, you will see a cell called FillForegnd,
click this cell and the formula in this cell will be shown in the formula bar under the
menus. Copy this formula and paste it somewhere safe (in Notepad or something).
Now close the shapesheet window, and close this Gantt chart diagram.

Open your own Gantt chart diagram, ensure you have the drawing explorer open as before and
go hunting for your faulty task bar shapes, open the shapesheet as before, go to the
FillForegnd cell and paste in the previously saved formula.

HTH.

 

[nanoman]

Hey Paul;

Wow, that's a lot of stuff. I couldn't get it to work though. The two
formulas were about the same:
From Blank Gantt:
=THEMEGUARD(IF(CELLISTHEMED(FALSE),SETATREFEXPR(THEME("AccentColor2")),SETATREFEXPR(RGB(0,0,0))))

From my Gantt:
=THEMEGUARD(IF(CELLISTHEMED(TRUE),SETATREFEXPR(THEME("AccentColor3")),SETATREFEXPR(RGB(0,0,255))))

The blank one is white whereas mine is blue (RGB values). I got those by
clicking an actual sheet and showing shapesheet. I got a different shapesheet
by clicking on the main folder for that (2nd) bar. Under it's fill
foreground, it just said use theme.

Why it didn't work: When I pasted the formula, which didn't work by the edit
menu or the shortcut menu (I had to use ctrl V) and then clicking the check
mark to accept, it just ignored me. It wouldn't do anything.

Some forums there is a way to attach a file, but I don't see one.

I got a question for you. I noticed your ad athe the bottom. I'm setting up
a process control for a very scientific type of a product. I have done proces
control all my life, but have been so involved with research that I'm a
little behind. I want to do MMI and was wondering if visio was a good
candidate. I will have to mate it with some form of control software and
hardware. Last time I did this was with opto22 and a industrial pc for the
mmi. I cannot remember the software I used. Has any one made a stencil with
code behind them and if so, to interface with what? I can just use AB which
has all this ready to go. But what got me to thinking about it in the first
place, was in the lab, lots of instruments come with software that collects
the data and puts it into an xls. I said, hey, visio can pull from an xls.
Process control, however, is a bigger task.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to make the chart over. Perhaps I can export the
data so I can just select it and paste it back into a new sheet. What do you
thnk?

Charls

 

[nanoman]

Ok, if I click on the task bar group and get the shapesheet, it says this for
the foreground: =THEME("FillColor")

I had to ctrl C to get that. Under the group is a folder and under the
folder, are a bunch of sheets. From one of those is where I got the formula I
sent earlier.

I don't know what I'm doing in there. Does MS make some documentation that
explains what that's all about. Seems almost over complicated.

I think it's worth noting, that I'm not complaining about the shading of the
task bar, so why am I in there. The shading is screwed up in cells like the
task name and the time scale. Places where I tried to make it look better
before I thought about there being a theme in place.

Charles

about my application I was talking about. I going to get some software
called labView. It's like the main brand, but I've never got the opportunity
to use it. Don't know what all it will do. Be great if it would do control,
that way when I scale-up, I could use the same software. I'm sure it will
output to xls, so I could have custom screens to show aspects of the process.
I went and looked, and the MMI was by opto22 as well. The control software
bythem is called cyrano, which is an extensible language.

Charles

 

[Paul Herber]

Hey Paul;

Wow, that's a lot of stuff. I couldn't get it to work though. The two
formulas were about the same:

From Blank Gantt:
=THEMEGUARD(IF(CELLISTHEMED(FALSE),SETATREFEXPR(THEME("AccentColor2")),SETATREFEXPR(RGB(0,0,0))))

= white

From my Gantt:
=THEMEGUARD(IF(CELLISTHEMED(TRUE),SETATREFEXPR(THEME("AccentColor3")),SETATREFEXPR(RGB(0,0,255))))

= blue

The blank one is white whereas mine is blue (RGB values). I got those by
clicking an actual sheet and showing shapesheet. I got a different shapesheet
by clicking on the main folder for that (2nd) bar. Under it's fill
foreground, it just said use theme.

Why it didn't work: When I pasted the formula, which didn't work by the edit
menu or the shortcut menu (I had to use ctrl V) and then clicking the check
mark to accept, it just ignored me. It wouldn't do anything.

In that case you need to edit the formula.

 

[Paul Herber]

Ok, if I click on the task bar group and get the shapesheet, it says this for
the foreground: =THEME("FillColor")

I had to ctrl C to get that. Under the group is a folder and under the
folder, are a bunch of sheets. From one of those is where I got the formula I
sent earlier.

I don't know what I'm doing in there. Does MS make some documentation that
explains what that's all about. Seems almost over complicated.

I very much doubt it, The internals of these shapes are not supposed to be changed.
It's too complicated to explain step-by-step, but once you know enough to go exploring
then it is not difficult.

 

[Paul Herber]

about my application I was talking about. I going to get some software
called labView. It's like the main brand, but I've never got the opportunity
to use it. Don't know what all it will do. Be great if it would do control,
that way when I scale-up, I could use the same software. I'm sure it will
output to xls, so I could have custom screens to show aspects of the process.
I went and looked, and the MMI was by opto22 as well. The control software
bythem is called cyrano, which is an extensible language.

An applicatiion like LabView will always be able to do its job better than a more general
tool like Visio.