Hyperlinking Visio Files

[Thomas M.]

Visio 2003
IE 7

I'm relatively new to Visio and I've been given a project which includes one
aspect that I can't seem to figure out. I've done a drawing of our server
room, complete with racks. Let's call that drawing 1. I've done other
drawings showing the contents of each rack. Let's call those drawings 2-10.

If a user is viewing drawing 1 and clicks on the first rack within that
drawing, they should then see drawing 2, which shows them the servers that
are in that rack. Eventually, we hope to get to the point where the user
could subsequently click on one of the servers in drawing 2 and see
real-time, critical technical data on that specific server.

But first, I have to figure out how to create these hyperlinks. I saved
both drawing 1 and drawing 2 as HTML files. When I open drawing 1 and click
the hyperlinked button, I get an error which reads, "Internet Explorer
cannot open the Internet site" and then it gives the path to the vml_1
file.htm file. The path to the file is correct.

How do I link drawings together in the way that I need to? Can any object
have a hyperlink, or is it only the hyperlink objects that have this
funcationality?

--Tom

 

[Paul Herber]

Visio 2003
IE 7

I'm relatively new to Visio and I've been given a project which includes one
aspect that I can't seem to figure out. I've done a drawing of our server
room, complete with racks. Let's call that drawing 1. I've done other
drawings showing the contents of each rack. Let's call those drawings 2-10.

If a user is viewing drawing 1 and clicks on the first rack within that
drawing, they should then see drawing 2, which shows them the servers that
are in that rack. Eventually, we hope to get to the point where the user
could subsequently click on one of the servers in drawing 2 and see
real-time, critical technical data on that specific server.

But first, I have to figure out how to create these hyperlinks. I saved
both drawing 1 and drawing 2 as HTML files. When I open drawing 1 and click
the hyperlinked button, I get an error which reads, "Internet Explorer
cannot open the Internet site" and then it gives the path to the vml_1
file.htm file. The path to the file is correct.

How do I link drawings together in the way that I need to? Can any object
have a hyperlink, or is it only the hyperlink objects that have this
funcationality?

use the menu
Insert -> Hyperlinks
but leave the files as Visio rather than HTML.

 

[Thomas M.]

use the menu
Insert -> Hyperlinks
but leave the files as Visio rather than HTML.

Thanks. I got it working at a basic level. But I do have another question.
When I point at the icon of the server rack I see the mouse pointer with the
hyperlink indicator, but nothing happens when I left-click. If I
right-click then I can select the linked drawing from the context menu and
it opens up. Is that the way it's supposed to work, or is there a way to
make the hyperlinked drawing open up with a left-click?

--Tom

 

[Paul Herber]

Thanks. I got it working at a basic level. But I do have another question.
When I point at the icon of the server rack I see the mouse pointer with the
hyperlink indicator, but nothing happens when I left-click. If I
right-click then I can select the linked drawing from the context menu and
it opens up. Is that the way it's supposed to work, or is there a way to
make the hyperlinked drawing open up with a left-click?

Yes, that's the correct operation. If the hyperlink were to work with
just a single left-click then you could never again select the
shape(s) without some very awkward or even impossible mouse
manouvring.
However, menu Format -> Behaviour -> Double-click may be of some
benefit.

 

[Thomas M.]

Yes, that's the correct operation. If the hyperlink were to work with
just a single left-click then you could never again select the
shape(s) without some very awkward or even impossible mouse
manouvring.
However, menu Format -> Behaviour -> Double-click may be of some
benefit.

That makes sense. I'm mapping out our server room and have objects inserted
for each server rack. I ended up adding labels for each rack, and then I
made it so that the double-click behavior on the label opens a detail page
for accompanying rack. Since the details are on a separate page of the same
file, I don't need to do a hyperlink. Still, it's nice to know how
hyperlinking works.

Thanks for your help!

--Tom