How does the divided bar work?

[Sebastian Helm]

Divided bar 1:
When I drag a pie chart onto the canvas, it allows me to change the number
of sectors and their size. By contrast, "Divided bar 1" seems to offer no
such choice. Can it be resized at all? If not, what is it good for?

Divided bar 2:
How can I customize "Divided bar 2" (increasing the number of divisions,
changing the colors or anything that requires it to be ungrouped)?

What I tried so far:
1. unprotect the LockGroup in the ShapeSheet,
2. ungroup
3. OK'd scary warning "This action will sever the object's link to its
master". (I assume "object" refers to the shape, but what is its master?)
4. Observed: ungrouped rectangles move to left border, frame around them
includes some invisible shape far below the rest of them, below the lower
left margin.
5. changed one of the rectangles and regrouped.
6. Observed: Grouped shape lost the ability to drag its divisions.

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

The first one is a basic shape, with limited intelligence.

I have asked that the ungroup warning be scarier. When shapes are grouped a
new shape, call it a group shape, is created to oversee the other shapes,
for now call them subshapes. At this point you can ungroup and restore what
you had with a group. Most grouped shapes go beyond this point. The
subshapes can reference the group shape or each other. The group shape is
like any other shape and can have control handles, a text block, custom
properties and other features. When you ungroup one of these shapes, you
lose these references and features. Grouping will not restore them.

So Ungrouping should be avoided. At the bottom of the Edit menu is an Open
Group command. This should be used to manipulate the the grouped shape.

So what is the smarter shape doing? The smarter shape is made of five
shapes. The group shape has a two control handles to manipulate the two
inner vertical bars. The next three shapes define the three coloured bars.
The left one has it's right edge defined by the first control handle in the
group shape. It's left edge is defined by the left edge of the group shpae.
The middle has it's left and right edge defined by the control handles. The
right one uses the second control handle and the right edge of the group
shape to define it's left and right edges. The final shape has no background
and is below the shape. It's used for displaying the text for the grouped
shape. The text in the three bars is defined as a field and uses a formula
that divides the width of the bar by the width of the grouped shape.
The grouped shape's behaviour prevents these text fields from being
selected.

To enhance the shape with more bars, you will have to add an extra control
point and bar shape for each bar to be added. The last bar in the orginal
will have to point to the new control handle for it's right edge and the new
bar will have to point to the new control handle and the right edge (or next
control handle).

John... Visio MVP

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