Selection Property [Visio 2003 SDK Documentation]

Returns a Selection object that represents what is presently selected in the window, or assigns a selection created by the CreateSelection method to a Selection object.

objRet = object**.Selection**

object .Selection = objExpression

objRet     A Selection object.

object     Required. An expression that returns a Window object.

objExpression    Required. The Selection object to be assigned.

Version added

2.0

Remarks

The Selection object is independent of the selection in the window, which can subsequently change as a result of user actions.

A Selection object is a set of shapes in a common context on which you can perform actions. A Selection object is analogous to more than selected shapes in a drawing window. Once you set or retrieve a Selection object, you can change the set of shapes the object represents by using the Select method.

After you use the CreateSelection method to create a selection, you can then use the Selection property to actually display the newly created selection in the Visio drawing window. See the second example that follows.

Example

This Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro shows how to use the Selection property to get all the selected shapes in the window.

Public Sub Selection_Example() 

    Const MAX_SHAPES = 6 
    Dim vsoShapes(1 To MAX_SHAPES) As Visio.Shape 
    Dim vsoSelection As Visio.Selection 
    Dim intCounter As Integer 

   'Draw six rectangles.
    For intCounter = 1 To MAX_SHAPES 
        Set vsoShapes(intCounter) = ActivePage.DrawRectangle(intCounter, intCounter + 1, intCounter + 1, intCounter)
    Next intCounter     

    'Deselect all the shapes in the active window. 
    ActiveWindow.DeselectAll 

    'Select all the shapes in the active window. 
    ActiveWindow.SelectAll 

    'Get the selected shapes and assign them to a Selection object. 
    Set vsoSelection = ActiveWindow.Selection 

End Sub  

This VBA macro shows how to use the CreateSelection method to select all shapes on a particular layer. Then it uses the Selection property to display the selection in the Visio drawing window.

Before running this macro, create two layers in your drawing, one named "a" and one named "b", and then add shapes to both layers.

Public Sub Selection_Example_2()

    Dim vsoLayer As Layer
    Dim vsoSelection As Visio.Selection

    Set vsoLayer = ActivePage.Layers.ItemU("a")
    Set vsoSelection = ActivePage.CreateSelection(visSelTypeByLayer, visSelModeSkipSuper, VsoLayer)

    Application.ActiveWindow.Selection = vsoSelection
    
End Sub

Applies to | Window object

See Also | DeselectAll method | Select method | Selection object