

Create and share diagrams by writing sentences - ssn
http://diagrammr.com/

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keyist
May be fun to play with, but rather limited, as tools based on natural
language tend to be.

For more flexible diagram work try the Artist-mode/ditaa combination
(<http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/ArtistMode>,
<http://ditaa.sourceforge.net>)

Or course once you get really serious you'd use Graphviz
<http://www.graphviz.org>

Diagrams in text = version controlled = win!

~~~
bockris
It's just a guess but I'll bet it's using Graphviz under the covers. I wrote
something similar to create ERD's on the fly from a schema.

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sh1mmer
You should note the security model here sucks. You embed your diagram with the
same unique Id that is used to edit it. However, editing isn't authenticated.
So anyone who can see your diagram can figure out the edit page and alter it.

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ShabbyDoo
<http://www.websequencediagrams.com/>

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karanbhangui
I'm currently using this tool for a web application setup. It's use is
invaluable.

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d4nt
That is quite cool, but I found I had to give a bit too much though to
plural/singular in order to get a diagram that made sense. If it could
understand that "templates" and "template" are the same thing it would make a
big impact on usability.

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bockris
The exact same thing happened to me. I wish that you could edit a sentence
rather than delete and re-add it with corrections.

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phr
Very cool. Here's one for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

<http://diagrammr.com/edit?key=dvvAjKyVhCs>

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JayNeely
It maxed out at 18 sentences for me, but I didn't notice it was just
overwriting the last one until after I had typed another 25 or so. D'oh.

Was using it to map out and notate the people I'm following on twitter:
<http://diagrammr.com/edit?key=dXUsqPIKKKP>

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ivankirigin
I think I just won the game: <http://diagrammr.com/png?key=dVDri1xYrbp>

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ssn
Also worth seeing: <http://yuml.me>

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bsaunder
Yup, I think the world of visual programming is approaching... I know we've
tried and failed before, but all the new people trying again don't know that.
_sssh_

Pretty cool stuff.

~~~
tmd
This is actually closer to the reverse of visual programming -- we create
diagrams by providing their textual representation. I really like the idea.
Every time I need to deal with some UML or diagram application I have an
impression that generating diagrams from skeleton source code would be easier
than the other way round. Tools like the built-in Visual Studio modeler, which
updates the diagrams in real time, are also a step in good direction.

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vaporstun
Very cool, one problem I found is that you can't have 2 word objects.

Example: Router connects to Web Server

It uses Router and Server as the objects with "connects to Web" as the
connection. Putting the 2 word object (Web Server) in quotes confused it:

Example: Router connects to "Web Server"

It should be possible to have a 2 word object with some kind of escape
character to create an object with more than one word without having it think
you are supplying it with part of a connection.

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udfalkso
While very neat, I'm not sure entering these with text is the easiest
approach. As soon as the automation fails to pick the right flow, you're
basically stuck. A combination of text input and graphical manipulation might
work better.

For a nice graphical approach, I've found <http://lucidchart.com> to be
excellent.

~~~
zmimon
Lucidchart is awesome. Google would do well to make an acquisition there - I
really feel the pain of not having any diagramming integrated with google
docs.

~~~
lucidchart
I agree. But then, I might be a little biased.

Ben Dilts Founder, LucidChart

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fnid
Anyone know of anything like this for data models? I'd love to build something
like:

    
    
      Customers have a name, address, and phone
      customers have many orders
      orders have many items
      items have a name, description and price
    

Something like that.

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ssn
Maybe <http://yuml.me> will help you.

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fnid
yuml.me is exactly what I'm looking for. Very nice. Thank you.

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almost
Would be great if you could export as Graphviz dot files (which it looks like
it's using behind the scenes). That way it would be useful sketching out the
basics but you wouldn't have to throw all that away once you needed more
features.

~~~
bockris
I tend to generate my dot file from separate data anyway.

To me, this lowers the barrier on getting something out there quickly. I can
think of a lot of simple improvements to what is there now.

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chanux2
it's like graphviz (<http://www.graphviz.org>) with natural language

~~~
sho
I think it is obviously graphviz with a smart front end.

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fburnaby
"I ate a popsicle, which was melting into a pot of cold soda."

It thought I was melting!

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tamersalama
Anyone knows how the natural language detection work (especially that fast).
Resources?

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bockris
It doesn't understand what you are typing. It probably just splits on words
and tries to match what it has seen before. I'll bet if you abuse it you can
break it.

Edit: It seems to do a split on spaces and then takes the first word and the
last word as the nodes and labels the edge with what is in the middle.

<http://diagrammr.com/edit?key=dkCDRHJUJA7>

~~~
bockris
note: The diagrams are not locked in any way so my carefully crafted test is
no longer there.

it was something along the lines of

    
    
      a b c
      a c d
      d ef g

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coliveira
Really cool

