Visio Professional 4.5

Component-based diagramming software toautomate the planning process

Every now and then, products cross my desk that are a joy to use.These products stand out from the rest because of the care the programmers putinto the development process. You know the type of product I'm talkingabout--the program that is so well designed that you actually enjoy working withit. The latest version of Visio Professional falls into that prestigiouscategory.

Visio Professional 4.5 is component-based visualization software fordiagramming databases and networks, and has something for everyone. Although thesoftware is a monolithic application, it uses object-based technologies tosimplify diagramming. Whether your primary job function is to deploy intranet orInternet sites, monitor networks, or plan projects, you'll find appropriatetemplates in this package.

From the start, I knew that Visio actively sought user feedback to improveits flagship product. Going against the trend of hypertext over pulp, VisioProfessional ships with two comprehensive manuals and a thinner installationguide. This approach may be less environmentally friendly, but I'll take a goodhardcopy manual over an electronic Help file any day.

Disk-space conscious users will appreciate Visio Professional'sinstallation options. You can choose a full installation that takes upapproximately 55MB or a minimal installation that runs most of the code directlyfrom the CD-ROM. However, be aware that Visio Professional is a largeapplication that pushes a lot of data through the pipe, so you need asufficiently speedy CD-ROM drive if you opt for the minimal installation.

Being Office 97 compatible, Visio Professional looks and feels like amember of the Office 97 family, right down to the flat 2D icons that inflateinto 3D icons as the mouse cursor rolls over them. The software adds a VisioProfessional icon to Office 97 applications. This icon simplifies embeddingdiagrams in Office 97 documents. For the first time, Visual Basic ApplicationsEdition (VBA) is fully integrated in Visio Professional; now you can createcustom solutions using a macro language that you already know.

Speaking of the user interface: Visio Professional is wonderfullymultithreaded--each process spins off its own thread, letting you work while theprogram is redrawing complex diagrams. For example, I sent Visio Professionaloff to scan the Windows NT Magazine Web site to create a Web site modeltemplate (as shown in Screen 1) while I built an elaborate and infallibleflowchart to Get Rich Quick. The Web Diagram Wizard worked quietly in thebackground, leaving the main user interface accessible and, most important,responsive.

To simplify the tedious task of diagramming, the program includes a largenumber of predefined shapes, known as stencils. You can choose from more than2000 shapes (over half of which are new in this version of Visio Professional)to put into your diagrams. Pulling your diagram together is a matter ofselecting the shapes you want and dragging them from the shapes toolbox to thediagram frame. The shapes cover almost everything you will use the program for,including network shapes right down to the manufacturer name.

However, all the templates are not complete. The user interface (UI)template lets you create a mock UI for your applications; unfortunately youcan't import the finished creation into Visual Basic or Visual C++. Similarly,the Web Diagram Wizard is indispensable for creating an outline of your Websites, but it doesn't support frames.

Visio Professional is an indispensable tool to automate the planningprocess. Version 4.5 combines powerful diagramming features with ease-of-use,resulting in a program that's functionally rich and a pleasure to use. Visiobills its product as "The Smartest Way to Design and Document YourInformation Systems and Business Processes," but forgot to include "TheEasiest to Use."