Limit to # of shapes in "My Shapes" folder?

[William Riedy]

I got a new computer from my corporation with Visio 2003 installed. I
copied the VNE folder from my old computer to new computer into the "My
Shapes" folder and all of the stencils do NOT appear in the pick list. Is
there an upper limit on the # of files that can be in the "My Shapes"
folder? (The VNE directory from my old computer had approx 1100 stencils).

Also opening the "My Shapes" dialog box is REALLY slow -- anyone know how to
fix that as well?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

I'm not sure if there is a hard limit or just a performance limit on the
number of files. Since Visio attempts to create a menu item for every file,
it is likely that a large number of files will be problematic. I believe
that creating subfolders within My Shapes helps.

 

[Dick Hamilton [MSFT]]

I think that the limit on how many stencils are displayed in a fly-out menu
such as the My Shapes folder is partly determined by display
resolution/size. One workaround would be to open the Open Stencil common
dialog. There is no special limit on the number of files that this folder
can contain. It's just another folder.

On the slow performance, Visio recursively iterates the My Shapes folder and
all sub folders looking for stencils. When it's done finding all the
stencils in that folder tree it displays the submenu.

You may want to consider if there are equipment stencils among the 200+
vendors in the VNE collection that you are unlikely to use in drawings, and
offload those to a different archive location.
--
Dick Hamilton
Microsoft Corporation

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