Posted At : February 12, 2008 8:31 PM 6 Comments
However, inspired by this article, I'm starting to use a new solution, Inkscape, that fulfills my criteria that works on Linux, Mac and Windows.
| Dia | Omnigraffle | Inkscape | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can create pretty pictures | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cross Platform (Linux, Mac, Windows) | Yes | No - Mac only | Yes |
| Open Source | Yes | No | Yes |
| Open file format (to work with version control) | No - Binary | No - Binary | Yes - SVG |
| Export to PNG | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Now you may argue that Inkscape is not a diagraming tool but a generic drawing tool. This is true, but with the addition of a few templates of pre-drawn items it become a very good diagramming tool.
I've created a few simple flow chart elements which I use and also scoured the net for some SVG icons for network based diagrams which were sourced from Gnome (via Ubuntu) and from Quantum Bits.
Give it a try - it's very easy.
6 Comments
Cool, I'll have to check out this software. I need a flowchart solution for Vista.
You can draw arrows in Inkscape.
- Select the "Draw Bezier curves and straight lines" tool (shift-F6)
- Line starting point: click mouse left
- Line ending point: double-click mouse left
- Open "Fill and Stroke" dialog (shift-ctrl-F)
- Click "Stroke style" tab
- Arrow style: "End Markers" and scroll down pull-down menu for quite a length till you find "Arrow2Mend". You now have a colored line with a black arrow head.
And more design can be found at the Open Clip Art project (http://www.openclipart.org/wiki/Inkscape)
Mark,
Thanks very much for taking the time to post this! I've just been through a similar quest, having been driven to insanity by frequent Visio use. (How a piece of software can be so barbarically unituitive is still beyond me).
I think Inkscape is the solution - Enterprise Architect is excellent as a software engineering tool, but for pretty client-facing diagrams it doesn't quite cut it. (EA is also not free, though its license is reasonably cheap for the features it offers, I think.
Cheers,
-Tim
Great article.. congratulations !!!
Under Ubuntu, look for Kivio - it's a good package and flexible like automatically moving sections with additions and so on. It will require some KDE/Koffice extras already in Kubuntu, if you're running Gnome or Xfce (Ubuntu or Xubuntu).