As this is an "open discussion" forum, I presume that general feedback is welcome. I am a software engineer, avid Visio user (among other productivity tools) and an advocate of FOSS solutions. I've meant to dig around for an OS flowcharting application for quite some time, but only got around to it today and came across this application.
I'm impressed with the level of work that has been done so far. The core elements of the application appear to function quite as I expect them to and there have been no unexpected results or crashes, etc. As a Visio user it was easy for me to identify the various things that I need to do and produce a workable flowchart in short order - my ramp-up time with Visio took much longer, but that was the first diagramming application I'd ever used (back before Micro$oft snatched it up).
So overall, kudos for the achievement thus far to the developers who have put tireless effort into it.
I think I will continue to use this application and track changes in the future. I hope to see improvements in some characteristics that make using the interface either a little clunky, or more work than it should be to start.
1) Placing the ends of connectors sometimes feels like wrangling a high pressure hose with a loose end - it just doesn't want to drop where I want it to without a fight, particularly when trying to join the centers of two rectangles' edges. Argh!
2) The default scales are ENORMOUS! In Visio, default object sizes are such that you can place dozens of carefully oriented objects on a page without scaling anything. In this application, you can place three or four if you're lucky. The font sizes are astronomical, etc. The application should assume a font size no bigger than 8-12pt (based on a 72pt/inch scale), and objects that would contain perhaps two lines of text at the chosen size.
3) How about U.S. standard units of measure as an option in addition to metric? American's aren't worldly enough think in metric :-)
4) Fonts render on the screen differently from the print - a realistic representation of the selected font is important so as not to waste paper with the discovery that the text actualy -doesn't- fit within the bounding rectangle. Using printouts to guide changes to the on-screen document is more than a little aggravating, especially when the entire layout needs to change to accommodate for the adjustment.
5) I read in one of the other threads about resolving missing extreme edges from JPG/PNG, etc. exports with a work-around, but I second the notion that the export should be including the extremities without having to kludge the diagram to make it export correctly - again, annoying a user with extra, non-intuitive steps is not a solid approach to scoring deep market penetration. :)
Anyway, I hope you find the feedback useful and if so I would enjoy providing additional such input over time as I use the application more. So far so good though - I got what I needed done today without having to requisition a copy of Visio for our department! :)
SK
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As this is an "open discussion" forum, I presume that general feedback is welcome. I am a software engineer, avid Visio user (among other productivity tools) and an advocate of FOSS solutions. I've meant to dig around for an OS flowcharting application for quite some time, but only got around to it today and came across this application.
I'm impressed with the level of work that has been done so far. The core elements of the application appear to function quite as I expect them to and there have been no unexpected results or crashes, etc. As a Visio user it was easy for me to identify the various things that I need to do and produce a workable flowchart in short order - my ramp-up time with Visio took much longer, but that was the first diagramming application I'd ever used (back before Micro$oft snatched it up).
So overall, kudos for the achievement thus far to the developers who have put tireless effort into it.
I think I will continue to use this application and track changes in the future. I hope to see improvements in some characteristics that make using the interface either a little clunky, or more work than it should be to start.
1) Placing the ends of connectors sometimes feels like wrangling a high pressure hose with a loose end - it just doesn't want to drop where I want it to without a fight, particularly when trying to join the centers of two rectangles' edges. Argh!
2) The default scales are ENORMOUS! In Visio, default object sizes are such that you can place dozens of carefully oriented objects on a page without scaling anything. In this application, you can place three or four if you're lucky. The font sizes are astronomical, etc. The application should assume a font size no bigger than 8-12pt (based on a 72pt/inch scale), and objects that would contain perhaps two lines of text at the chosen size.
3) How about U.S. standard units of measure as an option in addition to metric? American's aren't worldly enough think in metric :-)
4) Fonts render on the screen differently from the print - a realistic representation of the selected font is important so as not to waste paper with the discovery that the text actualy -doesn't- fit within the bounding rectangle. Using printouts to guide changes to the on-screen document is more than a little aggravating, especially when the entire layout needs to change to accommodate for the adjustment.
5) I read in one of the other threads about resolving missing extreme edges from JPG/PNG, etc. exports with a work-around, but I second the notion that the export should be including the extremities without having to kludge the diagram to make it export correctly - again, annoying a user with extra, non-intuitive steps is not a solid approach to scoring deep market penetration. :)
Anyway, I hope you find the feedback useful and if so I would enjoy providing additional such input over time as I use the application more. So far so good though - I got what I needed done today without having to requisition a copy of Visio for our department! :)
Thanks for the feedback. I've forwared it to the dia mailing list.