From time to time, I have to make a quick diagram for work. Yes, I'm tempted to avoid Visio at all costs because it's so clumsy. Drawing the diagram on paper or on a whiteboard and take a photo of it? Still way faster than Visio.
As for me, for years I kept using my "secret weapon", OmniGraffle. First off, it's Mac-only. At $100, it may look outrageously expensive, but bear with me for a moment. There's a fully-featured 14-day demo you can try.
OmniGraffle is just amazingly well made to make diagram. It's not only easy to use, but surprisingly powerful, and because it built up so much on Mac OS X graphics engine the diagrams look amazing. Years ago, it was the first diagraming tool that I've seen automatically snapping objects to align (center, top or down) or even space evenly as you move objects. Drawing a large amount of boxes and adjusting their look in one click after they've been drawn replaces the need for a cumbersome enforced templating system. And I can't insist enough how fast you can make beautiful diagrams.
So, yeah, OmniGraffle have been my secret weapon for years.
Published on June 12, 2012 at 19:57 EDT
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