master shape in stencil versus document stencil

[Kati Molnar]

A drawing should refer to the stencil for its shapes so that the shapes can
be kept and updated only in one place. When the master shape in the stencil
is updated, the shapes in all the drawings derived from the master shape in
the stencil should also change. However, this is not the case.

A master shape is copied over to the document stencil when it is dropped on
the drawing. The document stencil behaves as the original stencil should from
this point. When a master shape is changing in the document stencil, the
change is getting propagated to all the shapes in the drawing. But when the
master shape in the original stencil changes, nothing happens. The connection
between the master shape in the original stencil and the derived shape is
lost.

The document stencil belongs to one document only. So the concept of having
a stencil and getting the changes only in one copy is broken. If we need to
change every document stencil individually to get the change in the original
master shape then we do not have a real stencil concept.

Which is a pity.

Kati Molnar

 

[Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]]

You are correct.

When Visio was first created, people were barely using the network.

I think Visimation has attempted a Shape Replacement tool.

--

Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP