<i> As an IT Professional, I’ve been using Visio almost on a daily basis for quite some time.
I cannot think of living without <b>Visio</b> for my technical presentations. </i>
Right now the latest version is Visio 2002 which has advanced features such as .NET etc. It comes in handy with <b>Microsoft .NET Enterprise Architect</b>
Microsoft is projecting it to be a handy tool aiming to beat the great tool called <b>’’Rational Rose’’</b>, bought over by IBM.
Visio 2000 comes in 4 editions.
Visio 2000 Professional Edition, with industry-standard tools for drawing and diagramming network infrastructures
Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition, which adds powerful automated tools for network design and documentation.
(MS also released Technical and Standard Editions too)
Highlighted ones are the most predominantly used.
<b>Comments</b>
Microsoft Visio, released in 1992, is a business graphic application that uses the concept of plastic drawing stencils to create drawings.
You select a shape from a stencil and drags] it to the drawing page.
You only have to worry about the content of the drawing rather than drawing skills (Mine is pathetic!!).
Visio shapes appear to be the same as clipart, but unlike clipart, Visio shapes can have smarts.
Information from the shapes environment can affect how a shape is displayed.
For example, a shape’s color could change depending on what it is connected to.
And users can create their own stencils, modify existing stencils, or obtain stencils from non-Microsoft sources or from the Community Forums.
In addition, the backend of Visio is wide open.
From most programming languages, the content of a Visio drawing can be examined or modified.
A program can be written to create a drawing from information in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Access database, text file, or any other data source.
You can also create reports or update a data source from information in a Visio drawing.
You can also use background pages to use a common background for all drawing objects. You can also have a header and footer like any standard Office Tool such as MS-WORD.
Some of the basic day-to-day IT diagrams created using Visio are as follows.
<i>
Organization Chart
Network Diagrams
Floor Plans
Web site Maps
Flowcharts
Entity-Relationship Diagram
UML(Unified Markup Language) Diagrams for OO Developers
Schema Diagrams
Reverse Engineer a database structure
Dynamically generate a web site diagram
Generate and modify database DDLs(Database Definition Language)
Diagram the Software Application (Such as Interaction Diagram, Sequence Diagram, Colloboration Diagram, Event Flow Diagram) etc
Reverse engineer your code to generate the UML diagrams
</i>
Other things are like
<b><i>Block Diagram, Building Plan, Flowchart, Forms and Charts, Map, Network Diagram, Organization Chart,
Project Schedule, Building Plan , Electric and Telecom Plan , Floor Plan, Home Plan ,
HVAC Control Logic Diagram , HVAC Plan, Plant Layout , Plumbing and Piping Plan ,
Reflected Ceiling Plan , Security and Access Plan , Site Plan , Space Plan , Database,
Electrical Engineering, Flowchart , Mechanical Engineering, Network, Process Engineering, Software, Web Diagram </i></b>
<b>Requirements:-</b>
<b>TIPS</b>
You can see some great tips from the following URL.
https://visio2000.one.microsoft.com/tips/vistips.ASP
You can also join the news group at the following URL
https://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/messageList.asp?
ICP=Prod_Office&sLCID=US&NewsGroup=microsoft.public.visio.general&iPageNumber=1
<b>Bottom-line.</b>
It is a great tool. You cannot possibly live without it, if you are in a designer/architect role in IT industry. It is very versatile tool. I would say this is the best after MS-WORD in my opinion.
Happy to listen to your comments.
Inquizitor