Basically I'm working with several individuals who are very visually attuned. They have difficulty viewing large scale projects so something similar to visio would be nice.

Mainly time lines, or framework depenency structures. Right now I've been exploiting adobe photoshop but it would be much easier to use a program that generates the look I want.

I've never worked with visio but have seen the results. Is this something I should invest in or are there solid open source alternatives?

'precate it.

2/15/2007 9:37:31 AM

Dia: http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ Windows version: http://dia-installer.sourceforge.net/

Inkscape: http://inkscape.org/

FreeMind: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

ConceptDraw: http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/

etc.: http://www.osalt.com/visio

so sayeth google

2/15/2007 9:46:39 AM

jeeze

Just get Visio. Other than Inkscape (which is a drawing program), Visio is light years better looking and more functional.

If you want REALLY good looking diagrams, hop on a Mac and get Omnigraph. Not as powerful as visio, but 10 times "better looking" stuff.

2/15/2007 10:37:14 AM

OpenOffice has a tool for that. I don't know how good it is.

Jeeze.... I can't believe I just advocated something to do with that piece of shit known as OpenOffice. I feel dirty. I think I'm going to go lay down for a while.

2/15/2007 11:24:18 AM

^its alright, but unfortunately no one else has developed anything close to Visio (which I hate with a passion)

2/15/2007 1:15:03 PM

jeeze

2/15/2007 1:15:50 PM

FreeMind is pretty dank

2/16/2007 9:10:12 AM

Wound up having a couple of licenses of Visio around. It's not toooo bad but I'm definitely not impressed by any means.

2/17/2007 3:18:34 PM

If you've got access to MacOS X, you can always do OmniGraffle or OmniPlan

http://www.omnigroup.com/

2/17/2007 3:28:32 PM

^^ Using a mac in a prodominate PC development area just isn't feasible. Add into that the fact that most of our licenses don't include a mac version so no dice.

I appreciate the info though.

2/17/2007 8:25:54 PM

The good thing about Visio is how easily you can extend its functionality with VB, and can dig down into the shapesheets to do some pretty cool stencil stuff, but im sure 99.9999% of people never have the need to do such things

2/17/2007 10:18:20 PM

i like using adobe illustrator

it outputs files in vector so its easy for the lasercutter to run at like warp 9

if you're a student, you can use the unity computers or d/l a 30day working version from adobe's website

diagrams are very easy to create and manipulate

2/18/2007 11:26:20 AM

^^ I'm guessing most of these packages have hooks to integrate into development / business logic systems and VB integration is probably about the least attractive of them, that should not be a selling point

for example:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Accessories

FreeMind integration with Perl, Ruby, Java, XML/XSL, content management systems, etc...

2/18/2007 11:37:03 AM

i don't think he's talking about integration, i think he's talking about writing custom scripts/etc for it.

2/18/2007 11:50:38 AM

^^^

10,000 times slower than visio or any other of the options presented here. I love illustrator, but it's pretty stupid for diagrams, unless its to polish one up for a major publication or presentation that is being paid for.

^and^^

Yea, not talking about integration into other system, I'm talking about internal customization. It does have some integration ability, but that's not really all that useful for what Visio is used for.

2/18/2007 1:47:51 PM

jeeze

2/18/2007 1:49:46 PM

Visio is a wasteland, I hate that piece of crap. Unfortunately its the best piece of crap for what you want to do that I know of

2/20/2007 9:51:01 AM

.

[Edited on February 20, 2007 at 9:52 AM. Reason : .]

2/20/2007 9:52:32 AM

http://www.smartdraw.com - works great for me and is much cheaper than visio.

2/21/2007 12:57:15 AM

I've found that NOTEPAD does a really nice job

       ________                         __________                     _________      _________  
      | GUI_IO |<=====================>| GUI MAIN |                   | FILE_IO |    |  ERROR  |
      |________|                       |__________|                   |_________|    |_________| 
          ^                                 |                           ^ ^ ^ ^        ^ ^ ^ ^  
          |                                 |                           | | | |        | | | | 
          |                                 V                           | | | |        | | | | 
          |                             ____________                                   
          |                            | INITIALIZE |
          |                            |____________|
          |                                 |
          |                                 |
          |                                 V
          |          ____________       ______________          ____________  
          |         | PARAMETERS |<----| TEST CONTROL |------->| DATA_WRITE |------------
          |         |____________|     |______________|        |____________|            |   
          |                                 |                      |                     | 
          |                                 |                      |                     | 
          |                                 V                      |                     | 
          |                        |==================|            |                     | 
          |                       || ETEST PROCEDURES |            |                     | 
          |                       ||------------------|            V                     V
       _________                  || press/temp       |      ___________            ____________    
      | COMMMON |<----------------||  conductivity    |     | XML_WRITE |          | TEXT_WRITE |
      | STEPS   |                 ||   dissolved 02   |     |___________|          |____________| 
      |_________|                 ||    fluorometer   |           |
                                  ||==================|           |
                                  |==================|            V
                                         |  |  |             _______________   
                                         |  |  |            | XML_GENERATOR | 
                                   ------/  |  \--------    |_______________|  
                                  |         |           |                 
                                  V         V           V           
                               ________   _______    _______   
                              | SERIAL | | POWER |  | MODEM |      
                              |________| |_______|  |_______|      
                                            |
                                            |
                                            V
                                       _______________             
                                      | DAQ_INTERFACE |
                                      |_______________|
                                            |
                                            |
                                            V
                                       ___________            
                                      | DAQ_BOARD |
                                      |___________|        


                       ________________________________________________ 
                           NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS' DAQmx LIBRARIES
 

2/21/2007 1:43:34 AM