Hi,

I am having an issue with shape data in the 'Properties' window of the Visio Viewer 2013, when opening up any file that has been created in Visio 2013.

The steps I take to produce this issue are as follows:

1. I create a new blank diagram in Visio Professional 2013.

2. I select a stencil with shapes that have shape data built into them (e.g. Enterprise Applications stencil)

3. I drag a shape with shape data (e.g. Server) from the stencil onto the page, the dialog comes up and prompts me to fill in the fields for the data.

4. I save the document in the default format (i.e. vsdx).

5. I copy the file to another pc which has the Visio Viewer 2013 installed (browser is IE 9) and open up the file in the viewer.

6. I select the server shape and open up the Properties window. From what I am seeing, the set of properties is being displayed twice. The first set in the list, has just the property names but no values, the second set has both names and values.

From further investigation, my findings are as  follows:

1. This issue only seems to occur when opening up Visio 2013 file types (vsdx and vsdm) in the viewer, it does not occur when opening up Visio 2010 files (vsd) (Unsure whether any earlier version are affected as I don't have these version available to test).

2. Doing some experiments with a custom master stencil, I have been able to determine that the first set of properties is actually the labels from the ShapeSheet being displayed (with no values) then the property names and values are displayed after this.

3. This issue does not happen when using the Shape Data window in Visio itself, the properties are only listed the once, it's happening when opening up the file in the viewer activex control.

Has anyone else come across this or know of a solution/workaround?

Thanks,

Martin

p.s. Forgot to include:

Visio 2013 Professional (15.0.4717.1000) 32-bit

Viewer 2013 (15.0.4569.1503) 32-bit SP1

• Edited by mchatt01 Wednesday, June 10, 2015 2:19 PM Extra info

Hi George,

I installed the Viso 2013 Viewer on my Surface Pro 2 and tried opening up files in IE11 but I get exactly the same result. I have now sent some screenshots and a couple of sample diagram files to the email address you suggested, hopefully this will help in shedding some light on what is happening.

Please let me know if you require any further information.

Thanks,

Martin

Hi mchatt,

The meaning of my reply is I can reproduce your issue you are not the particular user to get this issue. I also tested this issue in other computers and got the same result, so I said this behavior might be caused by design.

I also found not all kinds of shapes occurred this issue, you can test it in your own environment and check it. But I didnt know which kinds of shapes also have this issue, I didnt test all kinds of shapes in Visio.

Hope its helpful.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

Hi George,

Thanks for expanding on your answer, I comprehend what you mean now.

So as I understand it then:

 - I am not the only user to experience this issue (which considering this thread has had 168 views, I am surprised nobody else mentioned they're having the same problem or described their experience of it?)

 - the issue is not affected by IE browser version

 - the issue is not limited to a specific machine

 - it does not occur with all types of master shapes, only some shapes are affected

 - the behaviour might be by design

Please don't take offence when I say this as I am grateful for your assistance, but I am struggling to get my head around why this behaviour might be ' by design', as I can see no benefit or useful purpose in duplicating labels with no values in a list window? Add the fact that it doesn't happen for Visio 2010 files (and probably earlier versions although I cannot verify this), nor are the 'duplicated' items appearing when a file is opened up in the Visio 2013 application as opposed to the viewer, it starts to look more like a bug or incomplete functionality in the Viewer ActiveX control itself?

I am wondering if the fact that the 2013 file formats are now XML-based whereas the older version files were binary has something to do with it. In any event, if I understand you correctly then there is not likely to be a solution or fix for this 'behaviour'. Perhaps the next version of the Viewer (2016?) will behave differently?

You say that not all shapes have this issue: can you tell me some examples of the stencils and shapes that do work correctly, please? All the ones I have tried have had the same result but I appreciate that there are a lot of stencils and a lot of shapes provided with Visio (so you'd be saving me a lot of time from having to go through them all if you've already found some).

If I can find a master shape whose shape data doesn't get duplicated in the Viewer, then analysing the XML may give me some idea of what is happening or how to work around it.

Many thanks,

Martin