Shape.AutoConnect Method (Visio)

Article
09/15/2015

Automatically draws a connection in the specified direction between the shape and another shape on the drawing page.

Version Information

Version Added: Visio 2007

Syntax

expression .AutoConnect(ToShape, PlacementDir, Connector)

expression An expression that returns a Shape object.

Parameters

Name	Required/Optional	Data Type	Description
ToShape	Required	[IVSHAPE]	The shape to draw the connection to.
PlacementDir	Required	VisAutoConnectDir	The direction in which to draw the connection. See Remarks for possible values.
Connector	Optional	[UNKNOWN]	The connector to use.

Return Value

Nothing

Remarks

The AutoConnect method lets you automatically draw connections between shapes on the drawing page while specifying the direction of the connection and, optionally, the connector.

For the ToShape parameter, pass the Shape object to which you want to draw the connection.

For the PlacementDir parameter, pass a value from the VisAutoConnectDir enumeration to specify the connection direction—that is, where to locate the connected shape with respect to the primary shape. Possible values for PlacementDir are as follows.

Constant	Value	Description
visAutoConnectDirDown	2	Connect down.
visAutoConnectDirLeft	3	Connect to the left.
visAutoConnectDirNone	0	Connect without relocating the shapes.
visAutoConnectDirRight	4	Connect to the right
visAutoConnectDirUp	1	Connect up.

If your Visual Studio solution includes the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio reference, this method maps to the following types:

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio.IVShape.AutoConnect(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio.Shape, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio.VisAutoConnectDir, object)

Example

The following Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro shows how to use the AutoConnect method to draw a connection between two flowchart shapes, a decision shape and a process shape, by using a third shape, a dynamic connector, all of which were added to an empty drawing page from the Basic Flowchart Shapes (US Units) stencil.

Because the example calls the method on the decision shape, Visio draws the connector from the decision shape to the process shape. Because we pass the method the enumerated value visAutoConnectDirRight for the PlacementDir parameter, Visio places the process shape automatically to the right of the decision shape on the drawing page, regardless of its previous location.

Public Sub AutoConnect_Example() 
 
    Dim vsoShape1 As Visio.Shape 
    Dim vsoShape2 As Visio.Shape 
    Dim vsoConnectorShape As Visio.Shape 
 
    Set vsoShape1 = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes("Decision") 
    Set vsoShape2 = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes("Process") 
    Set vsoConnectorShape = Visio.ActivePage.Shapes("Dynamic connector") 
 
    vsoShape1.AutoConnect vsoShape2, visAutoConnectDirRight, vsoConnectorShape 
 
End Sub

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