Manual layout mode and connection lines

[Brian Bergin]

I’ve tried to get used to the "new" (vs. what we had for over a year in the beta) manual layout mode but it’s not working for me. For example, when a non-Cisco switch is in use OnPlus fails to detect that devices are connected to it and instead connects everything to the firewall. When you make the non-Cisco device the root it does move the devices around but to get a decent view, say to move all printers to one place, credit card scanners to another, etc…, but when you move to manual layout mode you lose the connecting lines (we used to have them, but they were removed or at least I can’t find them). That was very helpful in getting a view of the LAN with the lines. Can we get them back? Just having a few dozen devices floating around on the screen with no good way of knowing where they’re going isn't as helpful as it used to be.

[jiyeung]

To restore the lines, you would change the Tree Layout Mode  to automatic under the topology settings

You should still be able to manually reparent and move devices around the topology in either view.

[Brian Bergin]

Jimmy,

I fully understand that, I've been using this for 2 years, but changing it back to Automatic then mangles any changes you've made to move things into logical groups (and often breaks where things belong - e.g. using a non-Cisco switch, try it, you'll see what I mean). My point here is Cisco cannot expect that everyone is running 100% Cisco hardware and you need to give them time to swtich over (no pun intended), but if the screen is just a single line of 10% sized icons.  I'm on multiple 24" monitors and OP does an auto-size (as configured) and it comes up at 10% for at least a couple networks becuase there are so many devices, wasting 90% of the screen to a teal background where if I move servers to one place, printers to another, cashiers to yet a nother, and so on it's much more logical but they still need to connect or I'm better off doing this in Visio.

Again, another example of Thunderbolt's orignal betas being much more user friendly and usable than the last GUI changes.  This works fine with 10-20 devices.  Try it with 80 or more.  OP has gone in the wrong direction to be usable as a management tool, IMHO.

[Brian Bergin]

BTW, manually reparenting items is a pain in the "new" GUI.  It was much more logical before when you could draw/delete lines to the parent.  Too much fluff, not enough functionality.

[Christopher Bearman]

You can still draw lines in the new GUI, when in automatic (tree) layout mode.

Simply drag out a line from the connection point at the top, or bottom of the device and drop the line on the device you wish to connect to. To remove a connection, draw over it in the same fashion.