[Hidden-tech] Visio alternatives?

[Jonathan Dill]

Hi all,

I am looking at free Open Source alternatives to Microsoft Visio for 
creating network diagrams, ideally using SVG format for inclusion in 
DocBook XML documentation.  The primary issue for me is convenience vs. 
cost--I have access to a Windows computer with Visio, but that computer 
is not always available, and I primarily work in Linux.  I am not likely 
to convince them to buy another license for Visio, and it would be nice 
if I could do everything on my own Linux desktop.

I have found several excellent programs including Inkscape, Skencil, 
sketch, scribus and OpenOffice.org Draw--I will put links for them in my 
Furl archive at:

http://www.furl.net/members/jfdnerds/SVG

However, Visio's "killer app" for me is the readily available templates 
and objects, also the objects snap into the right place automatically, 
for example when placing hardware into a rack diagram.

Does anyone know of libraries of templates and graphics, possibly in SVG 
format, that would supplement the use of these other SVG tools 
(hopefully the same price or cheaper than Visio itself)?

I'd also be interested in the possibility of some sort of "scripting" to 
generate network diagrams that would figure out how things should be 
arranged vs. explicitly placing objects on a "page" that then have to be 
tweaked if I make any changes.

Thanks,
Jonathan