For several decades I have been incorrectly quoting Graham on what I thought was a neat technique with Visio line patterns. It is, but I messed up. When you create Visio Line Patterns, the areas that are black will use the shapes line colour, so if you really want black, you have to use “almost black”. This is all true, but my mistake was using a value of FFFFFE rather than RGB(0,0,1).
So, the left trapeziod is the Line colour, the second is a solid yellow, the third is “almost black”. The fourth is white.
Graham first mention this to me when I was working on a line pattern of Christmas lights decades ago and the black wire and sockets kept changing colours. So, I was able to set the line pattern so the wire and sockets properly used the line colour. I never actually used “almost black”, which may be why I got it wrong.
I also thought that Graham had mentioned it in one of his books, unfortunately, I was also mistaken. It is one of the things that should be there. The books are still a must have if you get into serious Visio shape development.
One thing I really appreciate is the title page of my copy of his 2003 book.
Sorry Graham and sorry John G because you now have a blog on line patterns you need to amend.
John… Visio MVP in x-aisle
JohnVisioMVP.ca
john Visio MVP 