How to highlight a shape present in a group in Visio VBA - vba

Question

I want to highlight the shape corresponding to a particular group. The following code is only highlighting shapes that are grouped with active page or master but not with the group present in the active page.
Sub CA_Trace_Conflict1()
PCC_CA = InputBox("Enter PCC Band")
'SCC1_CA = InputBox("Enter SCC1 Band")
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Dim subshp As Visio.Shape
Dim connectorshape As Visio.Shape
Dim BandLinewidth As String
Dim lngShapeIDs() As Long
Dim count As Integer
Dim PCC_Flag As Integer
Dim SCC1_Flag As Integer
PCC_Flag = 0
SCC1_Flag = 0
Dim DiagramServices As Integer
DiagramServices = ActiveDocument.DiagramServicesEnabled
ActiveDocument.DiagramServicesEnabled = visServiceVersion140 + visServiceVersion150
Dim UndoScopeID1 As Long
PCC_CA_space = PCC_CA & " "
For Each shp In Visio.ActivePage.shapes
If shp.Type = 2 Then 'Check if shp is a group
For Each subshp In shp.shapes
If InStr(shp.Text, PCC_CA_space) > 0 Then
'If PCC_CA Like shp.Text Then
Set connectorshape = shp
Debug.Print shp.Parent
Application.ActiveWindow.Page.shapes.ItemFromID(shp.ID).CellsSRC(visSectionObject,visRowLine, visLineWeight).FormulaU = "5.5 pt"
' Debug.Print shp.ID
End If
Next
End If
Next
End Sub

Answer 1

I think you want to select a subshape within a group programmatically. Doing this in Visio is not obvious, so let me help. I'll put links to two articles on my website, plus one on Microsoft's at the end of the post. These discuss selection-related topics in further detail.
So let's tackle your problem...
Setup
Open a blank drawing in Visio
Draw two rectangles, then group them
You now have three shapes on this page.
Sheet.1 is a subshape
Sheet.2 is a subshape
Sheet.3 is the group
You can programmatically select the group like this, as you've discovered:
Public Sub SelectGroup()
'// Get the active window:
Dim win As Visio.Window
Set win = Visio.ActiveWindow
'// Deselect everything:
Call win.DeselectAll
'// Get a shape object:
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Set shp = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(3) '<<----- Sheet.3 is the group!
'// Cause that shape to be selected in the window:
Call win.Select(shp, Visio.VisSelectArgs.visSelect)
'// Cleanup:
Set shp = Nothing
Set win = Nothing
End Sub
By the way, the Sub above is much more nitpicky and long than it has to be. But it will help to have things simple and clean, when you start adding features and behaviors. You can actually one-line the whole procedure like this--you can even paste this into the Immediate window:
Call Visio.ActiveWindow.Select(Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(3), Visio.VisSelectArgs.visDeselectAll + Visio.VisSelectArgs.visSelect)
Now to subselect Sheet.1 or Sheet.2. One would think we could simply change the shp object to be one of the subshapes, ala:
'// Sheet.1 is a subshape, you'll get an error
Set shp = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(1) '<<----- ID = 1
but this won't work. In fact you'll get an "Inappropriate target object for this action" error.
To fix this, we have to pass a different argument to the Select method:
Public Sub SelectSubshape()
'// We've drawn two rectangles on a blank page, then
'// grouped them. Sheet.1 and Sheet.2 are subshapes,
'// Sheet.3 is the group.
'// Get the active window:
Dim win As Visio.Window
Set win = Visio.ActiveWindow
'// Deselect everything:
Call win.DeselectAll
'// Get a subshape object:
Dim shp As Visio.Shape
Set shp = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes.ItemFromID(2)
'// Cause that shape to be SUBSELECTED in the window.
'// Note the different argument: visSubSelect
Call win.Select(shp, Visio.VisSelectArgs.visSubSelect) ' <<------ visSubSelect!
'// Cleanup:
Set shp = Nothing
Set win = Nothing
End Sub
Voila! Subshape selected in the active window!
If you want to detect which shapes are already selected, then you'll have to fiddle with the IterationMode property of a Selection object. This is pretty confusing, plus I don't think you're asking for that right now. But knowing the term will help you search for help in the future, should you need it.
Articles
Getting a Handle on Selecting and Subselecting Visio Shapes
Detect Sub-selected Shapes Programmatically
Selection.Select method (Visio)