As mentioned, the addon controls many things about the shapes - which is a
requirement to ensure that the shapes and the code in the solution work
properly together. Specifically - the Custom Properties / Shape Data
fields are built in to the masters.
You can edit some features and attributes at the drawing level by editing
the master in the Document Stencil. This is the local stencil in the
drawing which contains a copy of every master ever used in a drawing.
In most templates, when you first drag a master to the drawing page, it
creates a copy of the master form the source stencil into the Document
Stencil. It is this master which is used as the inheritance source for all
copies/instances placed on the drawing. if you edit this master, the
shapes which are instances of it will inherit the changes - with a caveat
that I'll mention later.
The Organization Chart template & Solution is a bit different - it loads
with a copy of each of the shapes from the Organization Chart Shapes
stencil already copied to the Document Stencil.
You can test making some of your desired changes at the drawing level by
editing the Master. One warning - the shape / solution integration can be
broken if you alter the shape in key ways - so try this in a test drawing,
not in your main drawings!
Start a new Organization Chart drawing, and place a Position shape and a
Manager shape on the page.
Open the Document Stencil by selecting File > Shapes > Show Document
Stencil.
Double-click on a Master to enter the Edit mode for that shape.
Make changes like changing font / size, etc.
Close the Master edit mode (close the 'drawing' which opens for editing).
When prompted to "Update 'shapename' and all of its instances", select
Yes
This will propogate all inheritable changes to the instances on the page.
So, the caveat is that some things you do can block inheritance for those
properties. For instance, if you change the color of an instance on the
drawing page (say, to red), this property becomes non-inheritable. So if
you were to then edit the master shape and change its color to blue, the
instance would remain red - because local changes override Master to Shape
inheritance.
Hope that helps!
Barb Way
Product Support - Visio
Microsoft Corporation
[This posting is provided "As Is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.]
--------------------
I am a very basic Visio user (no formal training - yet!) and have managed to
learn a few things but I am banging my head against the wall!
I have set up a position on the chart (changed the size, colour and custom
properties) am trying to copy this shape (eg for multiple positions) in the
organisational chart. But everytime I copy and paste it loses it's size and
the custom properties (actually adds in the default properties).
Can anyone point me in the right direction? (I think I am going mad!)
I don't think you can do this, it's the addon that clears all this
data whenever a new shape is added to the diagram.
