Dynamic Stencil drawing based on Custom Properties?

[Bigwave]

Hi,

I'm trying to model a connections between systems in a data center
Depending on the customer configuration the number of connections an
ports on the switches will differ greatly.

Is it possible to dynamically draw or show/hide the connector subshape
of a master stencil based on the value of a custom property? Fo
instance if the custom property for entry ports is set to 2 then onl
draw 2 subshape ports. Or maybe I have to have a master stencil wit
say 4 ports and if I only need 2 hide the other 2.

What is possible?

Thanks,

Davi

 

[Al Edlund]

There's a couple of questions underneath that have to be answered. Since
these 'drawings' are for 'customers' will they require softcopy? You can be
pretty flexible on paper if the customer never wants to change them. How
accurate do the pictures have to be (i.e. do they want/need actual device
objects such as Cisco 3550 switchs, etc.)? On this you're only limited by
the three usual constraints (money, time, and imagination). There are
companies that will sell you suites of product data. Once again if the
contract was written appropriately these can be charged back to the
customer.
For my 'customer' I use the vendor product stencils (from cisco) and then
just populate the rack stencils that came with v2003. This eliminated the
need for creating new objects and that pesky worrying about "who owns the
drawing that you (presumably) were paid to create'. Some vendors already
have their products available for download for free (check John Marshall's
site www.mvps.org/visio).
The process of auto creating site drawings can be done (both physical and
logical).

al

 

[Bigwave]

Let me explain my scene a bit better.

The stencil objects are very simplistic objects made up of simpl
shapes grouped together. The idea is to allow a user to graphicall
define the physical and logical connections between device objects in
Data Center (i.e. Mainframe, Ficon Director, a Ficon-to-Escon switch an
the logical devices connected to a Control unit). Once the configuratio
is defined then an Visio add-in component will produce a configuratio
file to program the Ficon-to-Escon switch. The add-in will also be abl
to read an existing configuration file and draw the correspondin
drawing with all the connections defined.

Since each customer configuration can be quite different I nee
flexibility in how many ports, lpars, logical devices,... each devic
object has. Right now I handle this by defining different types o
master stensil objects with say 8, 16, ... ports and if the port
aren't needed then they just remain on the device objects.

Want I'm wondering is if it is possible to customize how many ports
sub-shape objects, are drawn on a master stencil object based on
custom property. I can then set the property to say 3 and have only
ports drawn on the device. Maybe the only way to do this would be t
dynamically hide/show the correct number of sub-shape port object
based on the value in the custom properties.

Does this make sense?

Thanks so much,

- Davi

 

[Al Edlund]

you make an old guy feel warm and fuzzy (a long time since I've worked with
escon). Yeah, you can do it. If you would like an example of an object that
does similar functions take a look at the ethernet object in the network
templates. It allows you to have a variable number of connections.

al

 

[Bigwave]

Thanks for your reply.

I looked at the Ethernet object under Network->Detailed Network Diagra
but I can't see what you are talking about. I looked at the custo
properties and it has "Number of Ports" as a property but if I set i
to say 9 ports it doesn't change the object at all. It retains th
original 5 ports that it started with.

Can you help explain what you were talking about.

Thanks,

Davi