ShowChanges Property [Visio 2003 SDK Documentation]

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Determines whether the screen is updated (redrawn) during a series of actions.

boolRet = object**.ShowChanges**

object**.ShowChanges** = boolExpression

boolRet     Boolean. True if the screen is updated for each document change; False if it is not.

object     Required. An expression that returns an Application or InvisibleApp object.

boolExpression     Required Boolean. True to update the screen for each document change; False to leave the screen unchanged.

Version added

2000

Remarks

Use the ShowChanges property to increase performance during a series of actions. For example, you can set the ShowChanges property to False while a series of shapes are created so that the screen is not redrawn after each shape appears. Then you can set it to True to update the screen.

If a program neglects to turn the ShowChanges property on after turning it off, the Microsoft Office Visio instance will turn it back on when the user performs an operation.

The ShowChanges property is similar to the ScreenUpdating property, which was implemented in Visio 3.0. In most cases using the ShowChanges property is preferable to using the ScreenUpdating property. Setting the ShowChanges property automatically sets the ScreenUpdating property; however, setting the ScreenUpdating property does not set the ShowChanges property.

  • When ShowChanges is False, the Visio instance will not refresh the screen (repaint drawing windows) as documents change or when they become obscured by other windows. All shapes in drawing and stencil windows are deselected and the Visio instance will not allow programs to change the selections of windows.
  • When only ScreenUpdating is False, the Visio instance will occasionally refresh the screen as documents change. ScreenUpdating does not cause deselects to occur or restrict selection changes.

The Visio instance will usually run faster when both the ShowChanges and ScreenUpdating properties are False than when only the ScreenUpdating property is False. When both the ShowChanges and ScreenUpdating properties are False, the Visio views will not react to document changes until the ShowChanges property becomes True. This can cause noticeable delays after a program has completed a sequence of many operations. To cause some changes to occur as they happen, set ScreenUpdating to True immediately after setting ShowChanges to False. This can shorten the delay that occurs after ShowChanges becomes True, but will probably lengthen the time to complete the overall sequence of actions.

Applies to | Application object | InvisibleApp object

See Also | AutoLayout property | DeferRecalc property | LiveDynamics property | ScreenUpdating property