How do I create this?

Sparky83

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Hi all,

What I'd like to create for work is something that will allow me to quickly and easily find drawings etc.

Although I don't think I'm explaining it very well.

If you imagine you have a photo of your house, this would be the background picture.
Then on top of this I want buttons (hyperlinks I guess???) that when you click it will open the corresponding file.
So I can have a list of floor plans, say 1 to 8. Then when one is clicked the next page would have all the drawings for the said floor, so as the floor is split into 4 zones you would have water, HVAC, power etc drawing hyperlinks under the heading of each zone.

It's very similar to how our BMS works but for a different use. Almost like a website in a way.

Is this possible?

(Does it even make sense???)
 
You're right, you're making no sense whatsoever.
Is this a website you want to make?
What's a "BMS"?
If it is a website you're after you'd be better off posting in our Computer forum.
 
I thought as much!

If you look at this picture...
ImageUploadedByAVForums1410094133.058810.jpg


You have fans, what I want to be able to do is be able to click on the fan with an invisible button and it will bring up a PDF that I'll create with everything I'd want to know about the fan, it's type, make where it's fed from, the MCB size etc etc.

The same with the floor plans I mentioned before. I want to be able to navigate between floor plans and then click on plant etc on the floor for info.

The reason I mention a web page is because that's the only way I can think if doing it.
 
I've seen something like that done on excel but don't ask me how it's done. Excel isn't my strong point.
 
Image mapping might help..

 
Adobe PDF professional can collate and link docs, I'm sure you might get something interactive out of it but the software licence is expensive.
 
You want something like HyperStudio or HyperNext which are spiritual successors to Apple's HyperCard. They are multimedia authoring packages that don't use the web.

Or you could make a webpage which is probably the best approach.
 
I'd say your first instincts are correct. A website is an excellent fit for what you want and it's also robust, it's not going to stop working in a few years time.

HTML provides image maps so you can have multiple clickable areas on one image, you can also just split your images up and place them side by side
 
Now this might sound silly but can you create a website that you can navigate etc but that's not on the internet?

I know I know! It's a contradiction in itself. The issue with a website is I can't put all this information online for all to see, even if you had to log in to view it. As that would be deemed wrong to.

What I need to be able to do is create a website type set of pages that can be navigated using "something" like IE but is safe and secure on the work network so there is absolutely no risk of anyone else getting it
 
Now this might sound silly but can you create a website that you can navigate etc but that's not on the internet?

I know I know! It's a contradiction in itself. The issue with a website is I can't put all this information online for all to see, even if you had to log in to view it. As that would be deemed wrong to.

What I need to be able to do is create a website type set of pages that can be navigated using "something" like IE but is safe and secure on the work network so there is absolutely no risk of anyone else getting it

Yes you can.

Have any of the companies you have worked for had an intranet. Put simply this is a set of web pages that are accessible only within your organisation.

When you create a website it is just a bunch of files.

Where you host those files depends on who can access it. Put them on a public visible server and it becomes part of the internet.

Put it on one of your company computers and it becomes an intranet. Only people within your work (and you can even limit that to a subset) will be able to access the website (intranet).

Outside the organisation, no one will even know it exists, Google won't find etc.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Now this might sound silly but can you create a website that you can navigate etc but that's not on the internet?

I know I know! It's a contradiction in itself. The issue with a website is I can't put all this information online for all to see, even if you had to log in to view it. As that would be deemed wrong to.

What I need to be able to do is create a website type set of pages that can be navigated using "something" like IE but is safe and secure on the work network so there is absolutely no risk of anyone else getting it

Yes, it's called an intranet. Looks and functions just like the Internet, but available only on your internal LAN. All you need is a web server. If it's a small LAN, any decent PC will do. You can install free web server software such as Apache or IIS. Then you have to design the site, which is where it gets interesting..

Edit - Nigel beat me to it, but we agree :)
 
^^
Yes, we do it with our engineering data and the whole thing runs on a CD/DVD. Just like you are trying to achieve.

You are looking at HVAC D&IDs but I've also seen it done with more complex process P&IDs.

I have to get some updated this week and I can find out what's involved.

I think it's done in HTML, but I do the engineering, and our IT guy does the clever bits.
 
Photoshop - Slices.

Oh and if the site can be accessed externally is is an Extranet :)

BTW I've also done similar in a CMS where you could draw a box around an area and assign it a URL.
 
Yes, it's called an intranet. Looks and functions just like the Internet, but available only on your internal LAN. All you need is a web server. If it's a small LAN, any decent PC will do. You can install free web server software such as Apache or IIS. Then you have to design the site, which is where it gets interesting..

Edit - Nigel beat me to it, but we agree :)

At its simplest, you don't even need a web server.

You can just dump the files in a windows folder an access it using the filepath.

Just enter the filepath of the main page in file explorer or your browser


Another cheap and cheerful way is to screenshot the image, and put it on a powerpoint slide. On that slide you can put invisible buttons that link to the documents you want.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
At its simplest, you don't even need a web server.

You can just dump the files in a windows folder an access it using the filepath.

Just enter the filepath of the main page in file explorer or your browser

That was how I set set up our first company intranet around 1997ish, but you don't get all of the scripting functionality and a whole load of other useful stuff that relies on http, so I'd say a web server is the way to go.

Just an added thought. If the OP just wants a bunch or interlinked docs, it's even possible to do it as PDFs, as they support hyperlinks.
 
Yes, it's called an intranet. Looks and functions just like the Internet, but available only on your internal LAN. All you need is a web server. If it's a small LAN, any decent PC will do. You can install free web server software such as Apache or IIS. Then you have to design the site, which is where it gets interesting..

Edit - Nigel beat me to it, but we agree :)

You don't even need a webserver if you don't need anybody from outside your organisation seeing them, and you don't need any backend technology like a database, and the pages and files you want to share are on some centrally located place like networked shared drives. If you just have a punch of pages linking to other pages, files and images, you can just run HTML pages from the file system.

That way, you only need to learn HTML and CSS and don't need to learn IIS or Apache.
 
From the looks of it, you already have the BMS system installed, so the question may be would you be able to do this from within the system yourself rather than having the installer of the system do it for you. I have a couple of different systems on buildings I look after, and at least one of them has floor plans showing individual units along with temperature readings etc. This was all done by the installer of the system, (working with the M&E contractor).
May also depend on the system as some have the ability to control individual components, (valves, speeds, temps etc), whereas some are just glorified on/off switches. I would say speak to your contractor and explain what you want to do and see what they say.
 
You don't even need a webserver if you don't need anybody from outside your organisation seeing them, and you don't need any backend technology like a database, and the pages and files you want to share are on some centrally located place like networked shared drives. If you just have a punch of pages linking to other pages, files and images, you can just run HTML pages from the file system.

That way, you only need to learn HTML and CSS and don't need to learn IIS or Apache.

You can, and that's what Nigel mentioned above, but you get a whole lot more functionality, including server scripting and lots of other useful stuff if you run a proper web server. I started our company intranet using a simple network shared drive many years ago, and I soon ran into its limitations.
 
Although web/html is probably your best solution, don't discount doing this in MS Access.
I use a very similar method for tracking electrical motors in power stations.

The beauty of an MS Access database is the portability in 'offline' scenarios. The database can be contained within a single file, which means you can keep a portable copy of the system on a USB stick.
 

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