New and updated toolbar
In this update of Solarwinds they have added some more tools to the toolbar. You can now insert shapes
and text, or text in the shapes. The zoom level drop-down has been added so that users can easily see
what the zoom percent is and quickly change it. Undo and Redo were options added in the last update
and can be very useful.
You get the option to bring shapes to the foreground or background. Shapes and text were highly
requested features. It provides you the ability to visually group entities on the canvas, highlight areas,
and provide clear context for maps. Shapes can be created by clicking the square or circle on the toolbar.
It gives it a bit of a “Visio” feel if you are familiar with Visio.
Another new feature is the select feature, allowing you to select all, Entities, shapes, images or labels.
The Layouts button is also new with this version, giving you 3 options for layouts Force-directed,
Hierarchical and Grid. Before you can change the layout you will need to select something, which
can easily be done through the select tool.
Hierarchical
Forced-Direction
Grid
Maps Properties Panel
Everything added to the canvas will now have a dedicated Properties Panel that you will see on the
right when you click any entity. There is also a properties panel for the map itself that you can get by
clicking anywhere in the blank space. This will let you change the Color Palette, track history, upload
a background image or change the background color. This is where you can really get creative with the
look and feel of your map. You could even put a map as the background and put your entities on cities
or locations. When editing the entities there are many things you can change, the size and shape of the
icon, the color, text, borders. You can even change what the icon looks like when it is down,
or in a warning state.
One constant request was to have the ability to resize and position, this allows you to build better
maps for large displays like something you would see in a NOC.
Below on the left is the property panel for an Entity, this one is an AD server. The one on the right is the
properties you get when clicking in a blank space on the map. This gives you an idea of the amount
of things you can change now.
Check back for more new features as they become available.