vba to set drawing cursor to pointer or text cursor (I beam) & disable local Ruler / tabs bar that appears above a shape

I'm not aware of a way to control the cursor in Visio but you might look at this post to see about doing so using Windows APIs (look for the entry from "ChadB").

When do you see local rulers above a text block? That's not the usual behavior in Visio.

Hi Scott: Thanks for early replies to Qs 1 & 2.  Focussing on Q2, I'm glad the appearance of this local tool bar is not the official default behaviour, and I need to disable it.

Recapping and expanding the experience:
I've used visio 2013 for three months. Only recently I've found that when I drew a rectangle from Ribbon/Home/tools, then:
     a) when I select a shape (rectangle, elipse, or line) with the POINTER tool and hit a character key, or double click a character that already exists as Shape.text: then the  local Ruler and tabs bar appears above the shape. When I then click the drawing away from any shape, then the local Ruler and tabs bar (that had appeared) then disappears.
    b) when I click the TEXT tool cursor on the screen, the local Ruler and tabs bar appeared either above a shape (if a shape was clicked), or above a transient text entry box (if no shape was clicked).
    c) in response to your question, I always see the local Ruler and tabs bar when the text function is activated.

[ When I run Visio 2010 on the same laptop, the problem did not arise. When I opened a .vsd file as a .vsdx, file,  I got the problem, as expected. Shutting down & re-starting the laptop does not solve it!]

The problem does not appear on Visio Guy/ Visio 2013 issues (http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?board=31.0),...

... Nor on http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/office-2013-known-issues-HA102919019.aspx#_Office_(release)_1 (which has no Visio 2013 issues..)

I suppose the most obvious step is to re-load visio 2013. My one anxiety is how many times I can re-load, before I exceed the (?undefined) MS fair usage criterion. I've already had to reload the program once for some breakdown in function, and it is not cheap.

Can you comment further, or suggest a means of contacting the development team?

Thanks again
Kelvin4

Kelvin -- I can't reproduce the problem you're describing, i.e., I can't cause the local ruler to appear.

Is is possible for you to create a short video capture demonstrating the problem? Or, at the very least, upload a screen capture that includes a shape with the local ruler and that also shows which tool is currently selected in the Tools group on the Home tab. I'll be happy to check with the Visio development team, especially if we can find a way to reproduce the problem.  Don't reinstall Visio 2013 quite yet...

Hi Scott,
Thanks for your help.

I have no video facility, but for three separate trials with fresh VSDX files, I have captured a numbered screen image for each step and written a caption caption (attached .pptx file)

The morphology of the tool tip cant be captured, but this is described in the caption.

I use Skype, and can show the effect in real time via the Skype interface, if a developer wishes in a next step.

I would have attached a sample of one of the .vsdx files shown in the screen shots, but EE has not yet enabled these files to be downloaded (hopefully soon!). I have forgotten the work-around I understand can send Visio 2013 files through the Expert Zone.

Kelvin
Errant-local-ruler.pptx

Thanks for the detailed screenshots and step-by-step instructions. I'll pass this along and let you know what I find out.

Grateful!