Kresmer User Guide

Basic Concepts

There are two basic types of objects that Kresmer drawings are built from: Network Components (or simply Components) and Network Links (or just Links).

Components represent physical or logical entities in the subject area your drawing depicts: switches, routers, buildings, network nodes or logical blocks. Each component takes its own place on the drawing (its position or origin) and it has its own set of the parameters (properties or props) that determine its appearance (such as width, height and color) or carry the information about its real-world properties (the number of the switch's ports, the port's physical medium and so on).

Links connect the components to each other and represent such things as cables, fibers, patch-cords and data flows or logical connections on the network diagram. Links have not definite positions since their end-point positions usually are determined by the positions of the components it connect. However, they usually have intermediate vertices, which have their own positions. Links also may have props, just like components.

Components are painted on the drawing in the order they were placed there. Links also are painted on the drawing in the order they were placed, but after all components were painted. You may move any component or link up or down in the painting order, but in any case all components are painted before any link. This ensures that links are always visible and not shadowed by the components.

The appearance of the components and links, as well as their its structure, behavior and the set of the applicable properties, are defined in the libraries. Kresmer Libraries are the XML-files containing the definitions of the component- and link- classes. Each component or link you place onto the drawing is an instance of some component- or link- class, defined in some library. Kresmer provides some "standard" libraries you can use. You also may create your own libraries if the "standard" components are not enough for you (see Kresmer Libraries Authoring Guide).

Kresmer stores drawings in the XML-file with the extension .kre using its own format. This format is documented, but you probably don't need to worry about the details since it's unlikely you'll want to create .kre files manually.

Kresmer libraries are stored in XML-files with the extension .krel. This format is also documented and you may wish to learn it if you going to author kresmer libraries. Standard libraries are distributed with Kresmer. You may keep your own libraries in any folder you wish - you just have to tell Kresmer where to find them (in the Application Settings). Kresmer also saves the copy of all the used library elements in the drawing files for the case these library absents in the target system, where the drawing is rendered (unless you switch this function off in the Application Settings).