selection precision

[vojo]

Is there any way to refine the selection precision in visio.

For example, assume I have 2 shapes very near to each other. Is there a
way to set the select precision so that I literally have to put the cursor
"on top" of the shape when button hit to get that shape (not the one next to
it).

When running at 400% or more, currently selection more like a shotgun than a
sniper rifle.

Note...in these drawings the audience of the drawing are going to spend 90%
of his time at the page level while creators of the drawing is going to spend
90% at 400% or higher. Why you may ask....well for example, a network
diagram that is more than a few shapes distills down to the audience getting
the overall concept and tunnels in only where needed, while the creator needs
to make sure all the shapes have the details involved. Otherwise the
situation turns into many pages and the audience is off down the "yellow
brick" road trying to figure things out.

Now I would be game to hyperlinks if the "big picture" page had a current
view of the (think accurate "icon") of the "little picture" shape pages.
However, I dont know how to do that.

Of course, opengroupwin() is an option...but would need to get the precsion
to select the desired shape ;-)

 

[Al Edlund]

well, it would probably have to be done with code, but, as a wish list item


Consider the pan/zoom window (a small anchored window that shows where you
are on a zoomed page) and invert the idea to a microscope view of where the
mouse is on the active page. Of course it should consider identifying which
shape(s) are under the mouse pointer at the time, since shapes can overlap.

any takers,
al

 

[Paul Herber]

Is there any way to refine the selection precision in visio.

For example, assume I have 2 shapes very near to each other. Is there a
way to set the select precision so that I literally have to put the cursor
"on top" of the shape when button hit to get that shape (not the one next to
it).

When running at 400% or more, currently selection more like a shotgun than a
sniper rifle.

As well as what Al wrote, check out menu
Tools -> Options -> General
and ensure "Select shapes partially within area" isn't checked.

 

[vojo]

While Al's suggest would be great (there is alot of cool things Visio should
focus on vs "cleaning up" links to excell), its a little grandiose for what I
am after. RE paul, yes partial shapes are not selected.

So, anybody have any opinions as to the following:
- Could I set the page tighter (aka 0.1mm) and get refined selection?
- What about page scale and drawing scale in the page properties
- could put handles on the shapes, but this goes to another IMHO tremendous
shortfall of visio: Shape awareness of other shapes not in this group.
Primarly
because I could "spray" the handles IF a given shape knew what was
around it
so the handles would not also be too close together.
BTW, if this was possible, there could be a whole new direction for
visio where
shapes could interact with each other in the shape domain - pass
properties/info
thru a connection "pipe", emulate a broadcast to all shapes on the page
ala
DHCP like fcn, etc....aka think of it as a graphical version of SYSYEMC.

I dont want to get into VBA since there is all the security issues with that
(it would be good if VISIO cleaned up the VBA framework - aka perhaps a VISIO
VM that only works with the current directory on down and no VBS/shape driven
registery updates ...or....take file reads/writes out of the environment and
have a function just for excell reads in current directory or subdirectory in
current, etc). Its probably alot easier to limit the access from VISIO than
it is to plug every single security hole!!!!!!!!!!