Visio 2003 Template Problem

[Showtime]

I am seeing this problem now for the 2nd time on another system and I am
totaly stumped...

The .vst templates are all installed and showup in the category view... they
even display a preview in explorer when I directly select/highlight the file
in the 1033 folder BUT when I click on them to open any of they all I get is
a blank page with the stencils showing on the left. If I download a new vst
template from anywhere on the web they seem to open fine... I am lost on this
one so any help would be awesome

Thanks in advance

 

[Paul Herber]

I am seeing this problem now for the 2nd time on another system and I am
totaly stumped...

The .vst templates are all installed and showup in the category view... they
even display a preview in explorer when I directly select/highlight the file
in the 1033 folder BUT when I click on them to open any of they all I get is
a blank page with the stencils showing on the left. If I download a new vst
template from anywhere on the web they seem to open fine... I am lost on this
one so any help would be awesome

What you are seeing is normal behaviour.The preview is just an image
of what an example might look like.

 

[Showtime]

Paul,

Thanks for the response... I may have confused you but regarding the
templates I really don't think this is normal behaviour... they don't work. I
have another installation where I can go to Category View, select a template
in a category and open it up as a fully populated drawing.

 

[Paul Herber]

I'm not sure what you mean by "they don't work". Templates tend to be
passive, they don't do anything until you drop a shape on them or
perform some action via a menu.
What do you mean by a fully populated drawing? Fully populated with
what?

 

[Showtime]

Hi Again Paul.

I have to admit I am even confusing myself now

On my other business laptop I have Viso Pro installed and I am a network
engineer so I use it mostly for network drawings. When I used to select a
template from the Category view it actually brought up a drawing that was a
"sample" drawing... Active Directory, network topology, etc which I would
then modify to suite my needs. This was something I got very used to since it
saved me lots of steps. Then after I was playing with some custom stencils
that functionality went away and I gave up trying to resolve it. Now I then
did a fresh install on my new personal laptop and the templates come up blank
which I have assumed was a problem and not the proper function of a template.
Now I did a 3rd install and damn the same blank template.

Is the only purpose of a template to provide a blank sheet and some
associated stencils to work with? ... doesn't seem like much of a "template".
I am sure I'm not crazy and this used to function differently but now I am
not sure if I am wasting my time and trying to get this to work in a way that
it simply isn't supposed to.

 

[Paul Herber]

Some templates will use the facilities of a Visio add-on to provide
extra functionality. Gantt chart is a good example of this. That's not
the only purpose of a template but they can just provide a blank
sheet. They can do a lot more than that though.

 

[Showtime]

Paul,

I check the Gannt Chart and yes I can see the additional functionality but
that still doesn't really clarify my "problem"... and I don't understand when
you say "templates can do a lot more than that though"... when I currently
open my network drawing templates they are blank and on another system they
used to open up with a "drawing" that I could use and manipulate.

Do you have any idea how I can get the drawing functionality back instead of
the blank page? Frankly the blank pages are totaly useless unless I am
completely missing how to make them do a lot more...