Visustin - Options

You can find several options in the Options menu. These options affect all the charts Visustin generates, whether viewed on the screen, printed or saved to a file. Some options, but not all, also affect Visio export.

Reset to defaults

This command resets all options to their default values. It does not affect file associations, 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. This option produces a conventional flow chart. This is the default style.
UML activity diagram style. This option produces a UML-like activity diagram. The main difference to flow charts is in the shapes. Especially the decision diamonds ◇ are different.

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

Compression

You can limit the amount of information shown in the diagrams. This is useful to make the pictures smaller while preserving the key information.

Display all code. This is the default option. All code is displayed, however long the lines are.
Compress continuous blocks. When 3 or more statements are displayed in a node, the statements in the middle are hidden to conserve space. This option is useful for skipping straightforward blocks such as initialization lines.
Truncate long lines. Short lines will be shown in their entirety, while long lines will be cut. This is a good compromise between size and readability.
Shorten code. All code is shortened. Only the statement starts are displayed. This option produces small charts.
Minimal code. Only a minimal amount of code is displayed in the chart, making the chart very small. Read the chart along with the original code to understand how your program works.
No code. The chart will contain only the shapes and arrows, no text. This option reveals the structure of the code without displaying the code.
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 is able to display comments for most languages. Code comments don't really form part of a program's control flow, but they are often useful in understanding what the code does.

Hide comments. Don't show any comments in the charts. Only show the code or the "pure" flow chart. This option saves space, but it may reduce the available information as well.
Display comments within control flow. Comments are placed between statements, near to where they appear in the code.
Display comments as detached labels. Comments are displayed next to statements, not between them. Some comments are not possible to detach without changing their meaning. In this case they appear within the control flow between the appropriate statements.

Compiler directives

Several programming languages support compiler directives (preprocessor instructions) to set compiler options and to selectively compile different versions of the same code. In those languages where compiler directives are supported, you have the following options for them:

Show as comments. This mode is the default. Compiler directives are displayed as if they were comments. This mode is subject to the comment setting (above): if you have selected to hide comments, compiler directives will be hidden as well.
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.

The Show as flow symbols mode cannot always produce a reasonable flow chart. This happens especially when conditional compilation is used to selectively compile entire functions or classes. This mode is best used for small conditional blocks within a single function.

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.

Font notes:

Due to technical reasons, only a limited number of fonts is available.
COBOL and Fortran: For fixed-format code, Visustin forces a fixed-width font in the code box to keep the columns aligned. Even if the code displays with a fixed font, the actual charts will use your font setting.
The font script controls the display of national characters. Read more in Character set options.
Tip. To quickly increase the font size, press Ctrl+>. To decrease, press Ctrl+<.

Source character set

This setting lets you load source files stored with different character set encodings. You can load DOS, Mac, EBCDIC and UTF-7 code, for example. Read more in Character set options.

Tab stops

This setting lets you define the tab width as the number of spaces per tab stop. The default setting is 8. — Certain languages, such as Python and fixed format Fortran, use pre-defined tab rules. For these languages, the tab setting has no effect. You will see a description in the Tab stops dialog when such a language has been selected.

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.

File associations

You can add Visustin to the context menu of Windows Explorer. You can right-click a file to open it in Visustin. By default, Visustin does not associate itself with any file types. You have complete control over which file types you want Visustin to open.

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 File associations|Code files... in the Options menu. For each source file extension, define the language and then associate it with Visustin.

Example: Steps 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 extensions. Separate extensions by semicolon (c;cpp).

The Pick defaults button helps you by offering a default set of file extensions for each 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 File associations|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.