Comments on: Automating Diagrams with Visio http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/ Boxes and Arrows is devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design; including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture and the design of business. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:43:59 +0000 hourly 1 By: Jess http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8356 Jess Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8356 Great article! It’s great if you can get your team to organize functional specs with hierarchical numbering too…it can become a precursor to this.

btw, Visio 2002 has native Excel support – no need to export to a comma-separated text file…

]]> By: Michael http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8357 Michael Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8357 Thanks, Jess. Yes, it really helps to use some numbering or lettering scheme to identify each node. We do this with our team for stuff like page identification in content inventories, for taxonomy identification, and such. Working with Perl, it’s easy to manipulate data on a server if nodes are identified this way.

Glad you mentioned that Visio 2002 deals with Excel natively — should reduce the steps for people.

]]> By: PeterV http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5286 PeterV Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5286 Efficiency rocks, great article!

I also found having some stencils in Visio really increases my efficiency. The only drawback with being efficient is managing expectations. At my previous job, I would often be able to do a simple but yummie looking sitemap (that didn’t require much thinking) in 10 minutes, but if asked for one, I always delivered it a few hours later (when possible).

I did that because I noticed that the project managers where starting to look at sitemaps as something “Peter can quickly throw together”. It’s harder to explain the thinking time some maps need, than to let them think sitemaps just take time.

]]> By: Benjamin Bennett http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8358 Benjamin Bennett Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8358 Ever hear of a piece of software called “Inspiration”?

It’s another great tool for creating “quick and dirty” site maps. Basically it allows you to import your Excel document (or enter your information directly) into its “outline” view…

Providing a hierarchy as you described:
1.0 Home
1.1 Section
1.2 etc….

Then it allows you to dynamically switch from that “outline” view to what it calls the “diagram” view. Basically it automatically converts your hierarchical listing into a site map. The default diagram is definitely better than that default Visio import, but still has plenty of room for improvement. And to accomodate that, it does have basic tools to allow you to change shaps, colors, fonts, etc… The tools are not quite as nice as Visio (nor anywhere near as flexible as Illustrator) but they are definitely good enough to get the job done.

And perhaps one of the best features of Inpiration is that unlike Visio it work on Macintosh as well as Windows!!!

Anyway I’m starting to feel like a salesman (which I’m not) so I’ll leave you with a link to their site…
http://www.inspiration.com/productinfo/Inspiration/index.cfm

And a “down and dirty” example of what the software can do… These are 140 pages of unpolished site maps that were literally produced in a matter of hours…
http://bcbennett.com/b/portfolio/USBank_SiteMaps.pdf [1MB]
(Caution: I’ve heard this download is painfully slow, so be patient.)

Enjoy!
_B

]]> By: rwstarinsky http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5287 rwstarinsky Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5287 I have successfully used a product called allCLEAR for about 20 years now (first the DOS and now the Windows version) for most of my charting needs. allCLEAR works off of short sentences, like an outline structure — no need to draw anything, simply cut and paste the sentences into the diagrammer and a diagram is instantly created. It’s a great tool for work breakdown structures, flow diagrams, site maps and process flows.

I should add that I’m an avid user of NetObjects Fusion, which bases all web page development off the site map. While I’m forced to used FrontPage to maintain one site, for all the others I’ve maintained/created, Fusion is my tool of choice with City Desk a close second, noting that City Desk is a more robust content manager, so it’s great for frequenty updated areas of a site, such as press releases, blogs, etc. while Fusion allows more creativity in site navigation without coding. So if you prefer to code/must code, perhaps Fusion is a good tool to use simply for prototyping the navigation of a site with a user community.

]]> By: Michael http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8359 Michael Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8359 Thanks, Benjamin. I had heard of Inspiration, but hadn’t used it — my team uses Visio 5 because it’s one of our corporate standard applications. I’ve actually been using OmniGraffle more, however, and exporting to PDF, but OG can’t import data like Visio does. I will definitely try Inspiration, though, because I’m much more comfortable using my PowerBook than my PC laptop.

]]> By: pradeepar http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5288 pradeepar Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5288 i have a set of 1200 applications and want to build ana pplication landscape diagram..

say applcation A has a dependency on application B, C
Application C has Dependency on D and A etc

Its difficult to draw in visio for all 1200, can soem one help me out how i can do this. tried the Visio Automating steps given, but didnt work.

Can somebody share the text files which they gave as input to Viso.

Thanks,
Pradeep

]]> By: Melissa Bradley http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8360 Melissa Bradley Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8360 Has anyone used (or is using) NetObjects Fusion to do site architectures and wireframes?

I was forced to switch over from Visio in the middle of a project. I can’t tell if I hate it for the right reasons, or if I’m just too used to Visio, but I’d love any comments on using either.

Sorry for getting a little OT. Meanwhile — I’ll sneak back into Visio to implement Michael’s solutions (thanks, by the way!)….

]]> By: tobijo http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5289 tobijo Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-5289 I’d like to second the readers who are suggesting that the article be revised to say this technique does not work with Visio 2003. I followed this fantastic tutorial for about 1/2 hour, creating all the needed files. Then I got to the part where you put it all in Visio to see the magic unfold. But there was no magic for me because Visio 2003 does not support any kind of text file.

]]> By: Christopher Fahey http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8361 Christopher Fahey Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://boxesandarrows.com/automating-diagrams-with-visio/#comment-8361 Do you really make your flowcharts in Excel before putting them into Visio? You find this *easy*?

To me, Visio’s core strength is not in its ability to render easy-to-understand diagrams (although that is clearly a plus). Rather, it is useful because it allows you to QUICKLY translate abstract ideas about cause-effect relationships, information structures, etc. into concrete documentation. It seems to me that designing the flowchart for, say, a simple registration process might take me about 10 or 20 times longer if I did it in Excel first.

I’ve often heard of the benefits of using the Visio/Excel connection to translate graphic information into spreadsheet data (for example to convert a graphical site map into a tabular content inventory). But this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone suggest going in the other direction.

Am I missing something about the benefits of this?

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