Linking to external documents in Dia or other alternatives...

[Jason Brower <encompass gmail com>]

Is there a way to take any object and give it a link to some external 
document?
I am a software architect that uses Dia on a daily basis.  I create 
many  diagrams to show siteflow, sourceflow, and model diagrams just to 
name a few.
The problem I have it when I start detailing the diagram in a document.  
Currently I use Abiword and I talk about, for example, the siteflow 
objects one by one detailing their information.  Though this works on 
the first run, I have a hard time keeping track of changes I have made 
to the documents to make sure I cover the changes I have made in the 
diagram.
I see two fixes for this, but this is left for discussion in the list if 
you have more.
* Create a way to put more information in a general format to the 
diagram objects and give me a way to export it to a document, like abiword.
* Build a way to link to a particular document from the Dia Object to 
another file so that I can visit it and instantly see the document 
information.

I personally like the first one as it would let me do all my 
documentation and updates from dia and I just export or change the view 
to see a document that details the information. All without loading a 
new program and needing to make sure linking will always work.

Enclosed are two documents I have that show the complexity of what I 
do.  This is an event management tool.  Everytime I make a change here I 
need to update the abiword docs to match.  It would be nice if it was 
all together and I could do a view change to see the information as if I 
was in abiword.

Best Regards,
Jason Brower

Attachment: model_diagram.dia
Description: application/dia-diagram

Attachment: site_flow_diagram.dia
Description: application/dia-diagram