Recommend an alternative to ms Visio for flow diagram creation ?

[ship]

Hi

Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?

Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)

I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).

Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!

I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)

With thanks


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

[Character]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

SmartDraw ?
http://www.smartdraw.com/exp/ste/home/

[Randy Yates]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

You could try using pstricks' "nodes" - see pst-node on CTAN.
But admittedly they're not "easy" although I've found it satisfying.
I've begun using it for my block diagrams.

--Randy

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)

There is Dia <http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/>, directly
inspired by Visio. There is Inkscape <http://www.inkscape.org/>,
which may be able to do flow charts. There is Kivio
<http://www.koffice.org/kivio/>. There are others.

All of them at an unbeatable price, I may add.

-- m

[Nikita the Spider]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)

I think Omni Graffle is just terrific, and older versions are still
available for free on Omni's site. It is, however, only for OS X.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/

[Brian Inglis]

On 12 Jul 2006 16:05:54 -0700 in comp.software.international, "ship"

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)

GNU groff comes with pic preprocessor for drawing diagrams.

[Joe]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?

I just use OpenOffice.org Draw for them. Quick, easy, works.
Oh yeah - free.

Post by ship
With thanks

no worries

[Joerg Simon]

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

Its not the tool without complexity, but if you like to work quick, then
visual paradigm is very handy because of the mouse gestures. However,
it's not that cheap.
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/

I too like poseidon for uml which is also very handy to draw qick diagrams:
http://gentleware.com/index.php

Regards,
Jörg Simon

[EventHelix.com]

Post by ship
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!

EventStudio 2.5 might work for you. You can enter the flows as a text
based
sequence diagram description and then generate the diagrams.

http://www.eventhelix.com/EventStudio/

Deepa

[George L. Sexton]

It's not cheap, but my favorite used to be AllClear

http://www.allclearonline.com

They have a simplified structure language and you could just actually type
in your process as text and it would automatically draw the flow chart for
you. So, instead of drawing boxes, and lines, etc you're describing your
process and it's drawing it for you.

It's very cool.

If you do a lot of flow charts, it could easily pay for itself.

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

[ship]

Naaa! All these suggestions seem too expensive and/or too complex.
I just want something dead simple.

I love using XARA Xtreme (probably my favourite program) but I have
to admit that it would be much quicker to have things that connect
intelligently to each other. i.e. you can move the boxes around and
they stay connected!

I'd take a LOT of convincing to spend more that say 25 bucks on this
because I create flow diagrams so rarely!

Any suggestions?



Ship
Shiperton Henethe

Post by George L. Sexton
It's not cheap, but my favorite used to be AllClear
http://www.allclearonline.com
They have a simplified structure language and you could just actually type
in your process as text and it would automatically draw the flow chart for
you. So, instead of drawing boxes, and lines, etc you're describing your
process and it's drawing it for you.
It's very cool.
If you do a lot of flow charts, it could easily pay for itself.

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to mention
horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with
which allows things to be moved around, without losing their
connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

--
George Sexton
MH Software, Inc. - Home of Connect Daily Web Calendar
http://www.mhsoftware.com/connectdaily.htm

[George L. Sexton]

Post by ship
Naaa! All these suggestions seem too expensive and/or too complex.
I just want something dead simple.
I love using XARA Xtreme (probably my favourite program) but I have
to admit that it would be much quicker to have things that connect
intelligently to each other. i.e. you can move the boxes around and
they stay connected!
I'd take a LOT of convincing to spend more that say 25 bucks on this
because I create flow diagrams so rarely!

Go to your local college bookstore. You can probably buy a flowchart
template for about $5.00. There you go. Quick, no built-in obsolescence.
All you need is a blank piece of paper and a sharp pencil.

Post by ship
Any suggestions?
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

Post by George L. Sexton
It's not cheap, but my favorite used to be AllClear
http://www.allclearonline.com
They have a simplified structure language and you could just actually
type in your process as text and it would automatically draw the flow
chart for you. So, instead of drawing boxes, and lines, etc you're
describing your process and it's drawing it for you.
It's very cool.
If you do a lot of flow charts, it could easily pay for itself.

Post by ship
Hi
Anyone recommend an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Visio for
drawing
basic flow diagrams?
Visio is too damned complex & rather counter-intuitive (not to
mention horrendously expensive!)
I have Xara Xtreme (which I love), which *could* do the job of course
but I need something
that has shapes that "know" that they have been joined together (with
an arrow etc.).
Basically I need something faster to develop flow diagrams with which
allows things to be moved around, without losing their connections!
I cant afford much money for this (max say c. GBP25.00 ??)
With thanks
Ship
Shiperton Henethe

--
George Sexton
MH Software, Inc. - Home of Connect Daily Web Calendar
http://www.mhsoftware.com/connectdaily.htm

[Juhapekka Tolvanen]

Naaa! All these suggestions seem too expensive and/or too complex. I
just want something dead simple.

How about GNU Dia?

http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/

It is ported to Windows, too.

[a***@gmail.com]

Hi..

You can also take a look here: http://opensourcealternative.to/visio

However, Dia is still the most popular alternative, but there are
others - including one for Linux only.

best regards,
Anders Rasmussen
webmaster
Open Source Alternative - www.osalt.com