Network shapes best practices

[David Cassett]

I'm a fan of the Visio Network shapes (what you'd find if you start a new
Detailed Network Diagram, for instance). I use them often in developing
documentation of network installations for clients. However, as they are
necessarily generic, they lack shapes related to specific domains (in my
case, RFID equipment).

To rectify this, I am developing a set of shapes representing these types of
equipment. The goal is to create shapes that are compatible with the Network
shapes in every way: the graphics in isometric view, the shading style for
front/side/top faces, and, of course, behavior. However, there doesn't seem
to be any source (on microsoft.com or otherwise) for best practices for these
shapes. Some things are easy--lists of custom properties, for instance--but
others are less obvious (e.g., what happens with the RUNADDON("NETWORK SHAPE
PROPERTIES") action?). In addition to the basics, it would be nice for more
advanced behaviors to work, like having icons for my shapes appear in the
Legend shape (found in the Network and Peripherals stencil).

Is there a resource anywhere that anyone knows of that documents the best
practices for these shapes? I have the ShapeStudio and all the documentation
associated with that, which is great for custom shapes in general, but would
love to see something specific to the network shapes.

--DaveC

 

[Chris Roth [MVP]]

David,

This is a good idea and you've got me thinking about an article for my web
site. I don't knowof anything already existing though.

--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

More Visio shapes, articles, development info and pure diagramming fun at:
www.visguy.com

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Hi David,

These are excellent questions. I don't think we've done much to document
network shapes or their construction techniques. We have recently been
trying to get more information out about shape development.

For Visio 2007 there are two new articles explaining designing shapes for
Visio 2007's Theme feature and designing shapes for Visio 2007's Data
Graphics feature:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa445858.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa468596.aspx

The Visio Insights blog also has a number of posts about shape construction:
http://blogs.msdn.com/visio/archive/tags/Shape+Design/default.aspx

But there is so much more to cover. Keep up the suggestions for
documentation. You might just inspire someone to blog about it! (Hint
Hint, Chris)

--
Mark Nelson
Office Graphics - Visio
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[David Cassett]

Mark,

Thanks very much for your reply, and sorry for the slow response on my part.
I'll check out the links you suggested, though I am currently developing for
Visio 2003 (no idea when my company will switch to 2007). I think most of my
questions are fairly specific to the behavior of the Network shapes, but any
resource is good for getting insight. If I have a chance, I'll get together a
list of my questions about the shapes, as well as guesses on answers to them.

--Dave

 

[davisboudreau]

I've been reading various posts on the topic of organizing custom
properties within tabs.
This is a very handy feature. I use RUNADDON("Network Shape
Properties") in the Action field of the shapesheet view and
"%Properties" for the Menu field.

Right clicking on an object and selecting Properties yields nothing
other than the standard Custom Properties window.

After great research I've concluded that this add-on is not part of
Visio Professional. It is either in Enterprise or was from the
dis-continued Network Enterprise Tools. I am beginning to think that
originally when I created the shapes, I used Visio 2000 and the Network
Enterprise Tools. This add-on gave me many other tools and utilities
for drawing network diagrams.

The question now is: How do we get this add-on?