Sticking shapes together

[jack20]

I have a particularly important question, and that is about sticking two
shapes to each other without using connectors. If anyone has every used
SmartDraw, it provides a feature called Connection Points which is a series
of dots on the periphery of the shape to which any other shape or picture can
stick. The dots can be edited to move to the inside of the shape as well, not
just the periphery. I am sure Visio has this feature but cannot find it. I
need to glue / stick objects together without the line in between.

Any help?

 

[jack20]

Sorry but my post was incomplete. I checked the feature of connection points
which states:

"A connection point is a special point on a shape that you can “glueâ€
connectors and other shapes to. It looks like a blue x ( ). When you glue a
connector or shape to a connection point, they stay connected, even if one of
the shapes is moved. Use connection points when you want connectors or shapes
to stay connected to specific points on a shape."

Unfortunately I am neither able to stick the two shapes to each other's
connection points nor able to move them around together.

Any help please?

 

[Paul Herber]

Connection points can be one of three different types
0= in glue
1 = out glue
2 = bidirectional glue
You can easily see/change these in the shape's shapesheet.
The default is type 0 which is ideal for joining connectors to shapes.
If you set the connection points to 2 then you can join shapes
together, but there is a but.
Moving one of the shapes will make both move but moving the other will
break the glue (otherwise you could never break the two shapes apart).

However, you might be better off grouping the shapes, this will allow
the two shapes to be moved together as one unit. There are various
settings for a grouped shape that control how it moves, resizes and
double-click operation.

 

[vojo]

note...if the shapes involved are groups of shapes of say 5 or more...the
dynamic glue (moving one group to the other for automatic connection) will
not work.

There only 2 ways I found to get around this
1. create a simple shape (line perhaps). go into shapesheet of group and
use
GUARD on pinx/piny to lock the group in relation to the line. May be
able to
use LOCTOLOC or similar to do this but I have never been able to figure
out
how that really works.
2. create a simple shape (line perhaps). go into that shapes shapesheet and
add geometries as needed to make all the pieces you want (ie build up
your
veiw of the group by building up geometries in this simple shape. The
down side
is that if you want to play with color/line/pattern for some subset of
geometries,
cant do that.

Good luck

it would almost be better if VISIO had a shape where you attach to both
shapes and use controls (actions button or similar) to "tractor" them toward
each other.
I dont think its possible to do this yourself since you would break the
PAR(PNT..)
settings in the PINX/PINY....but maybe I am wrong...comments anybody?