Visustin options

Help » Features » Options

Visustin comes with an extensive set of options. You access the options through the Options menu. You control the appearance of the generated charts through these options. Many of the options, but not all, also affect Visio export.

Reset to defaults

The Reset to defaults command restores all options to their default values. It does not affect any settings in the Configuration sub-menu, though.

Style: Flow chart or UML

Visustin produces two types of flow diagrams: Conventional flow charts and UML style activity diagrams. Both options include the same information using different symbols.

Flow chart style (default). This option produces a conventional flow chart.
Flow chart alternative style. This style uses alternative chart symbols at places. It looks a bit more like ISO standard flow charts. In general, the two flow chart styles are very similar.
UML activity diagram style. This option produces a UML-like activity diagram. The main difference to flow charts is in the symbols. Notable differences exist in the start and end symbols and decision diamonds ◇.

Note: Flow chart style (default) and Flow chart alternative style are identical in Visio export.

Sample code	Flow chart	UML
If x < 10 Then y = 1 End If

Compression

The Compression options let you control the amount of text displayed in the diagrams. By compressing you can keep the charts smaller while preserving the key information.

Display all code (distinct boxes). All the code is displayed. Each statement gets its own box (or other symbol). This option creates the largest diagrams.
Display all code. All the code is displayed. Consequtive statements are grouped into a single symbol, which saves some space. This is the default option.
Compress continuous blocks. When 3 or more statements are displayed in a symbol, the statements in the middle are hidden. This option reduces straightforward blocks such as initialization lines while keeping the key logic, including decisions and loops.
Truncate long lines. Lines that are "too long" are cut. This is a good compromise between size and readability.
Shorten code. Only the beginning of each statement shows up. This option produces small charts.
Minimal code. Only a minimal amount of code shows up. The chart becomes very small. Read the chart along with the original code to understand how your program works.
No code. The chart contains only shapes and arrows, no text. This option reveals the structure of the code without displaying the code itself.
Full comments. Cut down the code but keep full comments. This mode produces smaller, yet more understandable charts. Note that the Hide comments option (below) overrides the Full comments mode.

Tip 1. To create a small but understandable flow chart, select Shorten code together with Full comments.
Tip 2. To create a comment flow chart without the code, select No code together with Full comments.

Comments

Visustin displays source code comments in charts. This option is enabled for most programming languages. Comments help understand what the program does. The Comments option controls where the comments appear or if they are hidden:

Show as detached labels (default). Flow chart symbols are labeled with comments. The comments appear either between statements or next to them, depending on the flow.
Show in flow. Comments appear between statements as a part of the program flow.
Hide comments. Produce a "pure" chart with no comments, just the code. This option saves space but charts may be harder to read.

Compiler directives

Several programming languages support compiler directives, or preprocessor instructions, to set compiler options and to selectively compile different versions of the same code. You have the following options to handle compiler directives for the languages supporting them:

Show as comments. Compiler directives are displayed as if they were comments. This is the default mode.
When Show as comments is selected, the Hide comments setting (above) hides both comments and compiler directives.
Show as flow symbols. This mode is more advanced. Conditional compilation directives (such as #if..#else) are shown as if they were regular executable decisions. In languages supporting repetitive compilation (such as %rep in MASM), repetition directives are shown as regular executable loops. All other compiler directives are shown as comments.
Limitation: The Show as flow symbols mode cannot always produce a reasonable flow chart. It works best with conditional compilation blocks not exceeding procedure boundaries. Where conditional compilation is used to selectively compile entire procedures or classes, use the Show as comments mode instead.

This option is disabled for languages having no compiler directives.

Wrap lines

The Wrap lines option controls word wrapping inside the chart symbols:

Selected (the default). Visustin wraps code lines to produce a balanced look for the chart symbols. Symbols generally appear less stretched even when they contain long lines of code.
Unselected. Short lines show up "as is". Long lines are wrapped to avoid symbol distortion.

You may find that certain languages read better when the option is unselected, or that your charts look better when the option is selected.

This option is disabled if the code would become incomprehensible when wrapped. This is the case with old fixed-format RPG code.

Color mode

Black & White. Generate monochrome charts suitable for printing on black & white printers. This mode saves on memory, which is handy when creating very large charts.
Grayscale. Designed for printing, this mode creates charts using shades of gray.
Color. The default mode. It is suitable for both printing and viewing on the screen.
Full color. This mode fills the shapes with colors, resulting in a colorful view. It might be less suitable for printing on monochrome printers.

Print in Black & White. This option produces a monochrome chart when printed regardless of the other color settings. If you have a monochrome printer, you may wish to use this setting at all times. It allows you to view colored charts on the screen but create a monochrome chart for printing.

Font

Select the font for your code. Due to compatibility reasons, a limited number of fonts is available.

Certain languages require a fixed-width font in order to preserve column formatting. These languages include COBOL and Fortran fixed format, JCL and PL/I. In these languages, you can select any font for the flow chart, but the code view remains in a fixed-width font.

The Script setting of the font is important for the loading and display of national and special characters. Read more in Source encoding and Font script.

Due to technical limitations, not all fonts can be used for Chinese, Japanese or Korean on some Windows systems. Choose Arial Unicode MS if you experience problems.

Shortcut: To quickly increase the font size, press Ctrl+>. To decrease, press Ctrl+<.

Source encoding

See Source encoding and Font script.

Tab stops

Define TAB character width as the number of spaces per tab stop. The default setting is 8 spaces. Visustin replaces TAB characters by the correct number of spaces in order to keep the code properly tabulated.

The Tab stops setting has no effect on certain languages. In that case you will see a message about that in the Tab stops dialog. These languages either have fixed tab stops (such as Python or fixed format Fortran), or the TAB character has a specific meaning in the language (such as in ksh).

Hotkey

You can define a hotkey that brings Visustin to the foreground when you're in another program. This is useful if you want to repeatedly switch between your code editor and Visustin. Select Hotkey in the Options menu. The hotkey only works when Visustin is already running, it doesn't start Visustin if it's not running.

Configuration

Configure colors and labels

This option lets you configure the colors and labels appearing in your charts.

File associations

By default, Visustin does not associate itself with any file extensions. Associating Visustin with a file extension means you can right-click a file in Windows to open it in Visustin. You can select the associated file extensions by yourself. You can associate source code files, image files and job files.

Code file associations

Goal: Right-click a source code file in Windows Explorer. Select Flowchart to view it in Visustin.

To associate source code file types with Visustin, choose Configure|Associate code files... in the Options menu. For each source file extension, define the language and then associate it with Visustin. Example to associate .c files with Visustin:

Type c in the Extensions field
Select C/C++ in the Language list
Press Add
Check or uncheck "Open in birdseye mode"
Press Save

The Extensions field accepts one or more file extensions. Separate extensions by semicolon (c;cpp). Press the Pick defaults to get a default set of file extensions for your programming language.

To remove an association, remove the appropriate file type from the list and press Save.

Technical details: Visustin will add a Flowchart verb for the selected source file types.

Other file associations

Other file associations let you associate image files, flow chart files and job files with Visustin.

Goal: Right-click an image file in Windows Explorer. Select Open to view the image with Visustin. Select Print to print it. Drag and drop the file on a printer icon to print it on that printer.

To associate image files with Visustin, choose Configure|Associate other files... in the Options menu. To have Visustin open an image file type, simply select the checkbox next to the desired type(s). To remove the association, unselect the box. You also have the option to make Visustin verify the associations each time it starts, in case another application has taken over the selected associations.

Technical details: Visustin will add/redefine the Open, Print and PrintTo verbs for the selected image file types.