Two or more text blocks per shape?

[Wayne Erfling]

I understand that I can sort of get two text blocks in one "shape" by doing the following:
1) group two shapes
2) change the behavior to "Members First"

Unfortunately, "Member First" seems to also mean that the two grouped shapes can be easily dragged away from each other. In other words, when I go to drag the overall shape, whichever of the "inner" shapes I'm over physically moves, leaving the other shape behind. Sometimes I see a dashed-border "ghost box" where one of the (grouped) shapes was originally. Deleting the ghost box deletes the shape that has now been dragged somewhere else.

Obviously this is more trouble than just drawing two shapes in the first place (i.e. not trying to have one shape with two text blocks).

Under Visio 2003, is there a "good" way to create a shape with:
1) two or more enterable text blocks, and
2) that will drag as a unit instead of dragging the "inner" grouped shapes separately

???

Thanks, Wayne

 

[JuneTheSecond]

Thank you for your good question, because I did not know "Members First".
This function is one of the functions about group and is done in the section
named as "Group Properties". In this section, I fouund there is a cell named
as "DontMoveChildren". When I changed the value of this cell into true, then
the member shapes in the group is fixed and never dragged away.

 

[Wayne Erfling]

This is an improvement, though it comes at a cost.

With "Show Members First" in the Behavior dialog and "DontMoveChildren" in
the shape sheet, I have to click twice (two single clicks) on such a shape
to drag it. The first click will select one of the children (which can't be
moved) and the second click will select the group, which can then be
dragged.

At this point (having clicked twice) the shape will "lock up" and disallow
text input. Neither a single nor a double click will open up the text for
editing. Clicking outside the shape and then returning with a double click
will open one of the text boxes for editing.

So it's a trade-off at this point - only a single text block versus
remembering which shapes use the "special" behavior. It's not too hard to
get used to the grouped behavior...

Any other ideas?

---Wayne

 

[Wayne Erfling]

How would I do that? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "field"
in the context of Visio, or maybe I don't know how to view a "text block"
without it being attached to a single text field.

---Wayne