V2 and V3

Two generations, and why both are still here.

V3 is the product. V2 is the reference implementation it was measured against, kept live on purpose rather than out of sentiment.

The short answer, if that is all you came for: open V3. V2 exists so that a claim V3 makes can be checked against something simpler, and so there is a working Atlas if V3 ever breaks.

  • 1catalogue, read by both
  • 6diagram formats V2 pioneered
  • 3readings only V3 has
  • 0customer estates V2 can hold
01The short version

Open V3 unless you have a specific reason not to.

V3 does everything V2 does and adds the three things that make Atlas a tool you return to rather than a diagram you generate once.

Open V3 → Open V2 →

02Side by side

What each one actually holds.

Both read the same catalogue. What differs is what they can do with it, and whether the thing you built survives closing the tab.

V2 · ComposerV3 · Atlas
Reads the source-backed catalogueYesYes
Carries the four evidence statesYesYes
Assemble an estate on screenYesYes
Diagram exportsSix formatsSix formats, each carrying evidence marks and a key
Save an estate and come back to itNoNamed, plural, exportable as a file
More than one customerNoAs many as you hold, with a portfolio view
Dated history of what you changedNoEvery edit, dated
What to worry about in what they runNoRanked worst first, with sources
What a move to a target release costsNoScoped to their estate, not the product line
What moved since you recorded itNoCrosses your date against the evidence archive
Fix-pack resolutionNo959 published builds
Drawing scoped to one customerDraws the catalogueOpens on their estate, at their release
Proposal draftNoYes, with judgements marked for a human
Prints as a wall sheet with its keyNoYes
Second screenNoTwo windows that follow each other
03Why V2 stays

A fallback that has been redesigned is not a fallback.

V2 is a complete standalone document generated directly from the catalogue file by a build script. It is embedded whole rather than rewritten, so it stays byte-identical to what the catalogue produces.

That is deliberate, and it is the whole reason it is worth keeping. V2 owns its own document — its own fonts, palette, keyboard handling and help drawer — and nothing in V3 reaches inside it. So when V3 says an element is documented, you can open V2 and see the same catalogue reach the same answer through an entirely separate path.

It also means there is always a working Atlas. If a change to V3 breaks something, V2 is unaffected, because it shares no code with it — only the catalogue underneath.

  • Use V2 when you want to check V3.Same catalogue, independent rendering. If the two disagree about an element, one of them has a bug and that is worth knowing.
  • Use V2 when you want the diagram and nothing else.No estate to record, no history, no findings. Assemble, export, close.
  • Use V3 for everything else.Anything involving a real customer, a second visit, or a document somebody will be asked to defend.
04The real difference

V2 answers what a Maximo estate looks like. V3 answers what yours is doing to you.

That sentence is the entire distance between the two, and it took the whole of V3 to cover it.

A composer is a drawing tool. You assemble something, you export it, and from that moment the artefact is on its own — it cannot tell you that a support line closed in April, that a product you drew stopped being available standalone, or that the page a claim rested on was re-published last week.

V3 keeps the estate instead of the drawing. The drawing is generated from the record rather than maintained alongside it, so it cannot be more confident than the evidence underneath it, and the record can be re-read against a newer catalogue to say what moved. That is the thing nobody can shortcut, because what it accumulates is time.

Neither of them reads your systems, and neither ever will. Both are recorded by a person, and both keep what you record in your own browser.

05One more thing

There is an older Atlas, and it now has its own address.

It predates both of these and is preserved exactly as it was. Nothing on this domain touches it, and it is not part of what Atlas is now.

It used to sit at /architecture on the main Assetize site, which meant the most obvious address served the version nobody is being asked to use. That address is V3 now, and the older one moved to /classic rather than being deleted — it is the only remaining proof of the original rendering, and a link somebody saved two years ago should still arrive somewhere real.

Open V3 → What V3 does today →