Macros and palettes in Visio 2003

[Weeble]

I'd like to apply a consistent colour-scheme to my drawings, but every
time I try to streamline the process I hit one stumbling block after
another. Firstly, the colours that appear under the toolbar buttons are
garish and unchangeable. They're far to saturated for most diagrams.
I'd like to put the colours I actually use in there, but I can't seem
to change them.

If I right-click on an object and choose Format->Fill... I can see the
colours I've used in the drawing and pick one of them. Sadly, they
change their order all the time and it's hard to pick when there are
similar colours there.

I tried creating styles, but not only was the process confusing, it
also seemed to do something different from picking a colour from the
toolbar or Format->Fill... window. I have stencil shapes that use an
equation in their shape-sheet to set their line-colour to a darker
shade of their fill-colour, but this doesn't seem to work when I apply
a fill style. The equations are like this:
LineColor=
HSL(HUE(Sheet.43!FillForegnd),SAT(Sheet.43!FillForegnd),MAX(0,LUM(Sheet.43!FillForegnd)-40))
(Where the stencil object is Sheet.43, which is a group containing this
object.)

Strangely, when I apply the style, apply a different colour via the
fill toolbar button, and then undo, the colour of the style is properly
applied and the line colour calculated correctly.

I decided to try creating some macros to apply my main colours to a
selection. The problem is that the next time I load, my macros are all
disabled. I can't figure out how to allow *my* macros to run without
allowing *all* macros to run, short of buying a digital signature. That
seems like gross overkill.

I tried creating each of my stencil masters in all of the colours that
I am likely to use, but not only was this very time consuming, every
time I make a slight change to one of my original masters, I need to
recreate all of the different coloured variations.

So... any suggestions? I've tried lots of different things and hit
problems every way, and I'm hoping that *somebody* can suggest a way to
get *one* of these ways to work.

Regards,
Weeble.

 

[Chris Roth [MVP]]

Hi Weeble,

Under Tools > Color Pallette.. you can redefine the documents basic set of
colors.

Certain drawing-types, like Flowcharts have a Color Scheme feature built in.
When you open a flowchart template, add a few shapes to the page, then just
right-click on the page and choose Color Schemes. This functionality uses
styles to accomplish what it does.

Visio 2007 has a nicer assortment of colors - a softer palette, and
introduces Theming, which is a more advanced and capable form of what Color
Schemes were trying to do.

--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

Free Visio shapes:
http://www.visguy.com/category/shapes
Visio programming info:
http://www.visguy.com/category/programming/
Other Visio resources:
http://www.visguy.com/visio-links/

 

[Weeble]

Thanks! That

Under Tools > Color Pallette.. you can redefine the documents basic set of
colors.

Ooh, thanks. That makes things a lot more bearable. Now if only one
of the 3(!) different ways of setting a colour through the toolbar
button would let you use palette colours...

Certain drawing-types, like Flowcharts have a Color Scheme feature built in.
When you open a flowchart template, add a few shapes to the page, then just
right-click on the page and choose Color Schemes. This functionality uses
styles to accomplish what it does.

Sounds interesting. I'll maybe have a look.

Visio 2007 has a nicer assortment of colors - a softer palette, and
introduces Theming, which is a more advanced and capable form of what Color
Schemes were trying to do.

I've no idea whether we're likely to get an upgrade here. But it sounds
like it might be good.