Visio 2003: Shape and Stencil Relationship

[NY Law Firm Trainer]

In Visio 2003, is there any way to know from what Stencil was a given Shape
originally generated? You can right click a selected shape and go to
Format>Special to see the Shape name, but I'm currently finding no
identification of what stencil it was originally dragged from.

 

[Paul Herber]

In Visio 2003, is there any way to know from what Stencil was a given Shape
originally generated? You can right click a selected shape and go to
Format>Special to see the Shape name, but I'm currently finding no
identification of what stencil it was originally dragged from.

No, sorry.

 

[David J Parker [MVP Visio]]

Actually, you can find this out with a little bit of code:
http://bvisual.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3350D61BC93733A9!1790.entry

 

[Paul Herber]

No, sorry.

Actually, there is a way to do this but it only works for certain
shapes created by Microsoft.
The secret is in the shape's help file property. Each shape has a help
property, this can be read in VBA, C# etc and can be seen in the
Format -> Special menu (you need to be in developer mode (menu Tools
-> Options -> Advanced)).
Each stencil has its own helpfile and the shapes in each stencil
reference this, so the following relationships exist between the helf
file reference and the original stencil

Vis_SFB Flowchart Basic
Vis_SBlP Blocks with Perspective
Vis_SE Connectors
Vis_SMMD Brainstorming \
Vis_SMMD Legend /
so it's not a 1 to 1 relationship