Re: Cross-platform Network Drawing Tool

Regarding Visio import capability, ConceptDraw (http:// 
www.conceptdraw.com/) runs on both Mac OS X and Windows. They have an  
importer, but it's a script that requires you to have a copy of Visio  
(it opens the document and exports it to a more generic format). They  
don't have a Linux version though. Also, it's payware, although it's  
half the price of Visio and yet it pretty much does everything that  
most Visio users do.

For general purpose drawing, you might try OpenOffice (http:// 
www.openoffice.org/). It has a Draw program that, while not as  
flexible as Visio, does at least have connection points so you can  
create drawings with "snap" connectors. And, it's open source - runs  
on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X (X11). In fact, if you haven't  
already considered it, OpenOffice is probably your best overall cross- 
platform office productivity suite.


On Jul 31, 2006, at 11:55 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

>
> On Jul 31, 2006, at 16:04, Merton Campbell Crockett wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for an application or tool to create and maintain  
>> network drawings.  The key attribute that the software must have  
>> is that it can be installed on systems with different operating  
>> systems.  It must provide the same functionality on all systems on  
>> which it runs.
>>
>> In addition, it must have the ability to import network drawings  
>> created using Microsoft Visio.
>>
>> The operating systems that it needs to support are Windows XP,  
>> Linux (SUSE, Redhat, Slackware, etc.), Solaris, and Mac OS X.
>>
>> Can someone on this list recommend an application that satisfies  
>> the above requirements?
>
> Graphviz is an interesting tool, but unlike Visio, in which I  
> understand you manually lay out a graph, Graphviz is designed to  
> automatically lay it out for you; you just need to specify the  
> relationships between nodes and it figures out where best to draw  
> them. You can also supply node positions yourself, but that's not  
> its primary goal so I'm not sure how well it works for that. It is  
> very cross-platform though and should run on all the operating  
> systems you list. You can learn more on the web site:
>
> http://www.graphviz.org/
>
> You can ask questions on the mailing list, where the developers are  
> quite active:
>
> http://www.graphviz.org/MailingList.php
>
> I searched the list archives and see this message from 2 years ago  
> from one of the Graphviz developers about a possible Visio to  
> Graphviz converter; not sure if it's gotten any further since then:
>
> https://mailman.research.att.com/pipermail/graphviz-interest/ 
> 2004q2/001471.html
>
>
>
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