Webmaster forum - Drawings, Images, Layers and other groovy things

Author

Drawings, Images, Layers and other groovy things

William Tasso

2005-05-23, 7:46 pm

Greetings One and All

These days I find myself creating more and more diagrams to
represent/document Networks, Web Sites and other collections of
interconnected things.

It would be real helpful if I could trivially produce several versions of
the same underlying structure with different levels of detail depending on
the audience - without maintaining several documents in synch.

For example, I'm building a Network diagram the moment. For the techies I
must include IP-Addresses and other important info. Management needs no
such distractions.

Currently I'm using Visio so if anyone has a collection of visio clues
that would be splendid. However I'll look at any alternative solution.

Thanks for reading.
--
William Tasso

GreyWyvern

2005-05-23, 7:46 pm

On Mon, 23 May 2005 18:32:07 -0400, William Tasso <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com>
wrote:

> Greetings One and All
>
> These days I find myself creating more and more diagrams to
> represent/document Networks, Web Sites and other collections of
> interconnected things.
>
> It would be real helpful if I could trivially produce several versions
> of the same underlying structure with different levels of detail
> depending on the audience - without maintaining several documents in
> synch.

AFAIK, CorelDraw allows you to quickly hide and display layers of vector
graphics. You can disable any or all of "printing", "visible" and
"editable" for each layer. I use it at work to generate block diagrams of
electronics for web display.

There are likely other programs which do this as well, Illustrator comes
to mind.

Grey

--
The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the
pitfall corollary that nothing is ridiculous.
- http://www.greywyvern.com/webslavent?msg=149 - Presto the Puffin!

George King

2005-05-23, 11:37 pm

"William Tasso" <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote in message
news:op.sq817tq0m9g4qz-wnt@tbdata.com...
> Greetings One and All
>
> These days I find myself creating more and more diagrams to
> represent/document Networks, Web Sites and other collections of
> interconnected things.
>
> It would be real helpful if I could trivially produce several versions of
> the same underlying structure with different levels of detail depending on
> the audience - without maintaining several documents in synch.
>
> For example, I'm building a Network diagram the moment. For the techies I
> must include IP-Addresses and other important info. Management needs no
> such distractions.
>
> Currently I'm using Visio so if anyone has a collection of visio clues
> that would be splendid. However I'll look at any alternative solution.
>
> Thanks for reading.
> --
> William Tasso

William,

There are two ways to do what you want that I know of -
one is to pay a pile of money for Illustrator, Photoshop, or the like,
and the other is to maintain "intermediate files" with cheaper tools,
such as Visio or Ulead's PhotoImpact. For example, you build
a base diagram, and save it as "network_base". The base diagram
holds all of the detail to be common to all versions of your diagram.
Then, using the base diagram as a starting point, add whatever
details you may choose. Save the details, but NOT the base
diagram components. That way, you can create a new diagram
by opening the base diagram, saving it as a new file, then open
a detail diagram, select everything, add to the new file, then close
the detail diagram, save the new file, and you're done.

When I use the cheaper (and faster) tools, I use the base plus detail
approach for things like header art, where the background will
remain constant, but the title text will change. It tends to let me
quickly create new versions of graphics. To give the expensive
tools their due, you can keep everything in one file, and expose or
hide layers to generate the detail level you need. They also allow
you to create much more complex visual effects.

BTW, there used to be network-mapping tools that would take
system configuration files and build the network graphics for you.
Have you looked into those?

Good luck.

George King
G.E. King Marketing

William Tasso

2005-05-23, 11:37 pm

Forging a path through the Usenet jungle, armed only with a rusty
Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180, George King stumbled into
alt.www.webmaster and said:

> "William Tasso" <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote in message
> news:op.sq817tq0m9g4qz-wnt@tbdata.com...
[color=darkred]
> There are two ways to do what you want ...

Thanks

> BTW, there used to be network-mapping tools that would take
> system configuration files and build the network graphics for you.
> Have you looked into those?

auto discovery tools? Yes, I formerly had a copy of Visio that included
that feature. Must have shipped into an up-sell version because it
doesn't appear to be here.

Splendid for large existing networks, but these are mostly planning
diagrams - there's nothing to auto-discover :/ and of course it's not just
network diagrams that I need to create.

Oddly enough I got a call from an agency today enquiring about my
'Unicenter TNG' skills - was a long time since, didn't even know the
product was still shipping.

Guess I could be persuaded ;)
--
Whatever you do - do something.

William Tasso

2005-05-23, 11:37 pm

Forging a path through the Usenet jungle, armed only with a rusty Opera
M2/8.01 (Win32, build 7583), GreyWyvern stumbled into alt.www.webmaster
and said:

> On Mon, 23 May 2005 18:32:07 -0400, William Tasso
> <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote:
>
> AFAIK, CorelDraw allows you to quickly hide and display layers ...

Thanks - just enough keywords in there to kick-start the visio help file
into life :)

--
Whatever you do - do something.

Matt Probert

2005-05-24, 4:21 am

Once upon a time, far far away "William Tasso"
<SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> spluttered

>Greetings One and All
>
>These days I find myself creating more and more diagrams to
>represent/document Networks, Web Sites and other collections of
>interconnected things.
>
>It would be real helpful if I could trivially produce several versions of
>the same underlying structure with different levels of detail depending on
>the audience - without maintaining several documents in synch.
>
>For example, I'm building a Network diagram the moment. For the techies I
>must include IP-Addresses and other important info. Management needs no
>such distractions.
>
>Currently I'm using Visio so if anyone has a collection of visio clues
>that would be splendid. However I'll look at any alternative solution.
>

Any drawing package that supports layers. You can print/display with
any selected layers visible or not.

So, the background layer might be the plan, layer 1 the electric
cables, layer 2 networking, layer 3 water pipes &c.

Matt

--
The Probert Encyclopaedia - Beyond Britannica
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com