SmartArt constraints

Question

Hi,

I work on analysis of SmartArt constraints and I can't understand how tointerpret some of them.

For example:

<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parTx" for="des"/>
<dgm:constr type="h" op="equ" forName="parTx" for="des"/>
<dgm:constr type="h" op="equ" forName="parSh" for="des"/>
<dgm:constr type="w" forName="desTx" for="des"/>
<dgm:constr type="h" op="equ" forName="desTx" for="des"/>
<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parSh" for="des"/>

This constraints have not "refType" or "fact".

Please tell me what it means.

Answer 1

Hi FunkyKytarista,

Thanks for your question.

Someone from our team will contact you shortly.

Regards,

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SEBASTIAN CANEVARI - MSFT Escalation Engineer Protocol Documentation Team

Answer 2

Hi FunkyKytarista, I am the engineer who will be working with you on this issue. I am currently researching the problem and will provide you with an update soon. Thank you for your patience.

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 3

Hi JCurry,

Do you have any updates for me?

Answer 4

Hi FunkyKytarista, you can find a complete description of the constr (Constraint) element in ISO/IEC 29500, Part 1, section 21.4.2.8.

The schemas for CT_Constraint and AG_ConstraintRefAttributes can be found in the same document in section A.5.3 where it states that the 'fact' and 'refType' attributes are optional.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 5

Hi JCurry, you did not answer my question.

How to understand this expressions? What they do?

This constraint gets all the child nodes with name "parTx" and do something with their width, but what?

<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parTx" for="des"/>

Answer 6

Hi FunkyKytarista, ISO/IEC 29500, Part 1, section 21.4.2.8 contains the descriptions of each attribute of the Constraint element . Many of those descriptions contain a reference to the section that provides more details about the values for the attribute and what they mean.
 
The values for the 'type' attribute are defined by ST_ConstraintType in section 21.4.7.21. 'w' , or Width means "The width parameter."
 
The values for the 'for' attribute are defined by ST_ConstraintRelationship in section 21.4.7.20. 'des', or Descent means "The layout node can map to the descendants of the data point."

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 7

JCurry,

You did not understand me. I know how to use documentation and it does not give an answer to my question.

I'm not asking you what each attribute separately mean.

What does this constraint as a whole?

For example, I perfectly understand how works this constraint:

<dgm:constr type="h" refType="w" forName="node" for="ch" fact="0.6" refForName="node" refFor="ch"/>

But I really don't know how to interpret this constraint:

<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parTx" for="des"/>

or this

<dgm:constr type="h" op="equ" forName="parTx" for="des"/>

Answer 8

Hi FunkyKytarista, it sounds like you're not sure how to interpret the constraint because some of the attributes are missing. Is that true?

Most optional attributes have a default value that is used when the value is not defined in the constraint. The default values for the attributes can be found in the schema definition in section A.5.3.

If I take the following constraint:
<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parTx" for="des"/>

And add some of the missing attributes with the default values from the schema definition it now looks like this:
<dgm:constr type="w" forName="parTx" for="des" refType="none" refFor="self" fact="1"/>

Does that help?

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 9

Yes, is true.  Thank you JCurry. It's almost what I need.

But now I don't see the point in this constraint.

Answer 10

Which SmartArt graphic did this XML sample come from? I would like to see the constraint in context.

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 11

This is a part of "urn:microsoft.com/office/officeart/2005/8/layout/process3"

I have not English version of MS Office, but it can sounds like "Process with Shift"

Answer 12

I don't see a SmartArt graphic with that or a similar name. Could you send me the file that you are working on? You can send that to my attention at dochelp(at)microsoft(dot)com and reference this thread.

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team

Answer 13

I have sent the file.

Answer 14

Hi FunkyKytarista, in the English version of PowerPoint that particular SmartArt graphic is the 'Accent Process'. I experimented with some of the constraints that you pointed out under the LinearFlow layout node that only have the 'forName' and 'for' attributes and added the 'fact' attribute using a variety of values. I was able to determine that those are controlling the sizing of the boxes when they are either manually resized or resized automatically when you add or change the text. It's not easy to say which constraints control what exactly, but if you play with the values you can get some pretty odd behavior.

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Josh Curry (jcurry) | Escalation Engineer | Open Specifications Support Team