Visio 2010: preventing parallel connector routes

Question

I recently took Microsoft Office Visio 2010 in the interest of generating a thread of execution for the software application that I am planning. Until now, I have enjoyed the program, and this has helped me significantly understand what interactions and events I will need for the program before I even start coding it. However, I have one problem with the software, as I add new chart elements, Visio aims to try to combine routes as often as possible. This can make it difficult to see exactly where some routes indicate. For instance:

Example 1: Example 2:

In Example 1, you can see that there are three routes, each of which has a different label. Initially, these labels also overlapped each other. I realized that this can be turned off in the Page Layout dialog box, so it’s a little better than it was, but the beginning and end of the route are still merged. This is not a problem here, but it may be as shown in Example 2.

What indicates where in example 2? The line on the left indicates the diamond at the bottom, and then three routes go to the top of the diamond. This is the problem I'm trying to solve. This is not shown in these examples, but labeling the three routes in Example 2 puts labels on this long stretch of vertical, which makes it impossible to indicate which label corresponds to which line.

Is there a way to prevent line overlapping this way? I’ve fully studied the Page Setup dialog box, but none of the options available there allow this behavior. The only solution I could find on the Internet was to draw all the routes manually, but that would mean that I couldn’t use the “Re-Page Layout” feature, and that could be quite time consuming if Visio decides to do this often.

Update:. Fiddling with some additional settings, trying to find a solution to this, I came up with a great example showing how bad it is. Now this is an extreme example, and if your diagrams look like this, you are probably doing it wrong, but it clearly shows that it quickly becomes impossible to determine what the source and destination are for each row.

Answer 1

After many hours of searching for ways to make routes, don't overlap or play nicely; the only solution I found that is recommended is to reinstall the routes manually. Changing settings such as anchor settings and page layout options helps to some extent, but not completely. Hopefully the next Visio incarnation will do better. Well, this is still a great tool and definitely helped me visualize the flow of execution.

Answer 2

This may not be the solution for you, but on my network diagrams I can do the following.

In Visio 2010, click the Design tab, then click Connectors and select a curve.

It separates the lines, but again, it may not look right for the flowchart.

Answer 3

I have the same problem and I have not found a satisfactory solution.

I tried all permutations of snap / glue settings, layout behavior and connector behavior without success.

The best solution I have found so far is to manually add multiple connection points to the source and destination and use them to connect your shapes. Make sure your connectors indicate “no overlap”. Then you can use the automatic alignment / layout tools and get something fairly straightforward.

You lose the benefits of dynamic glue, but you can reduce this by deleting connection points (i.e., on one side of the form) to force Visio to use your user connections. You will also have to disable “glue to geometry” in the snap / glue options.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/visio-help/add-move-or-delete-connection-points-HP001231166.aspx

Please update this question if you find a better solution.

Answer 4

Yes. In most cases, I have problems getting my to lines to overlap nicely :).

You can try changing some Snap and Glue settings:

On the View tab, in the Visual Aids group, click the start button of the dialog box (small two-headed arrow). In the Snap and Glue dialog box, I will try to change the snap to option for Shape geometry .

Answer 5

I will not say if you are talking about it from the code or not, but I found a Design → Layout → Re-Layout option that will take care of this.

Answer 6

Like Alex, I found that I add my own sticky dots to the shapes and delete by default, which helps a lot. Therefore, make sure that you have the appropriate settings in the "Page Settings" | Layout and routing:

• Style: Right Angle
• Split: all lines
• Overlap: No Rows
• Appearance: Straight
• Interval: I found all these distances especially important.

Knowledge of the settings for each connector in the "Developer" section | Behavior | Connector | Redirection is also important, as changing this setting from “Free” to “In Crossover” when reconnecting the connector. Sometimes I find it necessary to set a specific connector to Never. Also useful is the ability to select all connectors (and NOT shapes) using Select by Type when forcing Visio to redirect.

I do this with Visio 2013 ERD diagrams, and I noticed that while I have defined my own connection points on each object, it is usually better not to select them, but to let Visio dynamically select the “best” - then if I reorganize the objects, rerouting is all still works. Any curiosity that I noticed is that the Visio connectors do not match my connection points at the bottom of each object, but (since I deleted the OotB connection point at the bottom of the object anyway) have the connectors installed accordingly. The top and sides of the connectors are dynamically connected in the same places as the connection points.

I'm still having problems placing connectors under / inside / through objects (so that the connector works inside / inside / under the form) [with ERD, especially with self-referencing relationships], despite the fact that Developer | The behavior settings on both the connector and the form appear to prevent this. These are often the ones that I have to route manually and set to the Never route again.