Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

re: Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

Matt Barker — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:05:08 GMT

Need to allow users to control connector routing. This automatic is cool at first, but if we need to change the behavior. Visio 2010 makes it impossible to route the connectors the way we want them. I'm trying to force the connector to be in the center of the object on the top and bottom only. I do not want any connectors going side to side or have connectors jumping over each other because the objects are close to each other. The objects I'm using are Servers(US)objects. Behavior I want is object A is virtically above object B. The Connector should connect on the bottom of object A in the center and connect to the top of object B no matter how far apart they are or how close they are.

re: Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

Pete — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:50:17 GMT

On our diagrams, we use long box shapes that contain several small shapes, and then try to connect specific small shapes within different long box shapes to each other. It appears that the long boxes between the two small shapes we want to connect prevent the automatic connections from going from one shape to the other in the most direct path; the connector is routed "around" the intermediate long box shapes. I can manually adjust the connector to go directly between the two desired shapes, but is there a way to turn off the automatic routing when connecting shapes?

re: Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

Visio Guy — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:27:45 GMT

One thing I've noticed over the years with flowchart layout is that the Decision shape is not understood.

The reason it is diamond shape (I assume) is that branches should come off of it perpendicular. The diamond is like four arrows re-directing traffic.

Often the "No" branch will go to the right, and "Yes" will go down. But auto-layout frequently arranges shapes connected to a Decision shape in a "Y".

So "Yes" and "No" both come off the same point on a Decision. I think most people would judge this as wrong. It seems to defeat the graphical purpose of the diamond too.

Looking at the improvements in Visio 2010, it looks like the Visio engine is capable of handling this properly. Even if it only works with Microsoft-supplied shapes (ala: Decision and the multi-flowchart shape if it still exists)

Heck, you could look at User.visVersion and Master.NameU and handle even shapes from a few versions ago!

- Chris

re: Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

Visio Team — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:36:02 GMT

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your feedback. If you manually adjust one of the segments of the connector, Visio tries to preserve the routing of that connector.

We call these manually routed connectors. If you nudge a shape near a manually routed connector, the connector won't move, the shape will simply cover the connector. You can then right click the connector, and click "Reset Connector" to get back to the normal, dynamically routed state.

I think this is the behavior that you're looking for.

There are some scenarios where this manually routed connector will still be routed. For example, if the connector is glued to a shape, and you move the shape significantly, Visio reroutes the connector, but it tries to keep the same number of segments. Sometimes, Visio is forced to "reset" the connector to preserve connections.

Does this help you?

Suneet Shah - Visio Product Team

re: Improved Flowchart Routing in Visio 2010

Doug — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:46:14 GMT

Do you have a way to turn automatic routing off for a given connector?

As good as you can make an algorithm, it will not meet all situations and the user will want to take control.

My experience with older Visio was that I could adjust the connectors for a while and then moving something, either a connector or a shape, would make it all go KABOOM and the diagram would be a mess.

If I could freeze or turn off the automatic for the connectors that are in a perfect state, that would help.