Hi Howard, On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:17:44 -0500 "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com> wrote:
Much of the enterprise market seems wedded to Visio as their network graphics tool, which locks them into Windows. Personally, I hate both little pictures of equipment and Cisco hockey-puck icons; I much prefer things like rectangles saying "7507 STL-1" or "M160 NYC-3".
Assuming you use *NIX platforms (including BSD under Mac OS X), what are your preferred tools for network drawings, both for internal and external use? I'd hate to be driven to Windows only because I need Visio.
I've been using inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) a bit recently, and haven't found it too bad for basic box network drawings. It's native format is SVG, although make sure you save your working diagrams in the Inkscape SVG format. If you save it as "normal" SVG, all the objects get merged into a single one - annoying if you want to go back and edit it later. I haven't tried it, however there is a probability that Firefox 1.5 can view the .SVGs Inkscape produces natively. Regards, Mark. -- "Sheep are slow and tasty, and therefore must remain constantly alert." - Bruce Schneier, "Beyond Fear"