
Diagrams: A diagram editor for the Mac - timmz
https://diagrams.app/
======
elwell
> The Missing Diagram Editor for the Mac

Yes, it is missing. Please repost when it exists.

~~~
yarick
Is the Alpha download-able somewhere ?

------
jackhack
I don't understand why this is bubbling up to the top of hacker news. I
presume it is because of high demand and hopes for a native graphing tool, but
is there some other reason I am missing? I ask because the project looks to be
very early-stage. I see only very simplistic box-and-arrows charts which
wouldn't be sufficient for anything but the most basic of ideas -- certainly
not for publications or a professional presentation. And the information about
its future path and goals is slight-to-none. The team has a very long road
ahead to replace full-featured products like LucidChart or OmniGraffle. [edit:
grammar]

~~~
mtmail
Generic support for a solo-developer working on a slick MacOS app. At least
that's why I started following the project on Twitter a couple of days ago.

~~~
dabockster
Well there's also the fact that you're either buying OmniGraffle or tolerating
Dia's dependencies on the Mac platform.

------
gcb0
I love how everyone spends years drawing diagrams with mouse torture in visio,
OmniGraffle, licid, etc.

eventually everyone will find out about plantuml (puml) which generates
diagrams of all kinds via a simple source file and wonder how they could ever
live without it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Pros:

\+ It's all plaintext. I love working with plaintext for all the usual
benefits, so this fits.

\+ PUML renderer is technically a free-to-download JAR, so it can
presumably[0] integrate well with my Org-mode life.

Cons:

\- Try to draw anything more complicated than three boxes and an arrow, and
you'll be spending 90% of the time fighting the layout engine.

\- It's even worse when you have your own opinion about the desired layout. No
way to do that reliably, the result is very brittle.

I generally like it, but I'd like it 100x more if there was a way to
explicitly pin some component to absolute coordinates. Or at least a better
way for giving layout hints than soft constraints introduced through invisible
links.

\--

EDIT: A random idea if anyone is developing something PUML-like:

How about separating out layouting a bit, and letting me type in something
like that:

    
    
      A     F    G
      B  C  D
               E H
    

And then continue with regular PUML code:

    
    
      package "core" #A {
         [something]
         [something-else]
      }
    
      ...
    
      [some-component #D]-->[some-component #E]
    
      ...
    

Basically, I wish I could draw a picture representing the rough layout of key
image components, and have this as a hard constraint on positioning other
elements.

\--

[0] - Presumably, because I gave up on it after couple large-ish diagrams,
just before my use has reached the threshold above which I consider Emacs
integration.

~~~
eevilspock
I hope you don't mind, but I submitted your excellent idea to the Mermaid
diagram folks:
[https://github.com/knsv/mermaid/issues/270#issuecomment-4170...](https://github.com/knsv/mermaid/issues/270#issuecomment-417027136)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't; in fact, I very much appreciate it. This is a kind of thing I'd
pursue if I didn't already have higher-priority work and personal projects, so
I'd love if someone else could try this out.

------
donatj
> The Missing Diagram Editor for the Mac

I’ve been using OmniGraffle for this purpose for ten plus years. They’re gone
downhill since moving into the App Store but there certainly are diagramming
tools for Mac...

~~~
snipem
Draw.io is also pretty capable, interchangeable with non-Mac users and they
have a native-ish app

------
lukaskubanek
Hi! Here is Lukas, the founder of Diagrams. We launched our website on Monday
and announced it on Twitter only. I must say I’m astonished to see us on
position three of Hacker News today!

At this time we’re in the middle of the development. However, this week’s
support really encourages us to work even harder on a perfect product. And
we’re also very happy to have several offers from developers and designers who
offered collaboration!

It’s great to read your feedback in form of ideas, expectations and questions.
You can be assured we read them all attentively. Please keep on posting. We
will try to give as many answers as possible in future blog posts.

We also got several requests for beta testing - we will announce the
opportunity to apply for an upcoming beta phase via our mailing list, which
you can enter here: [https://diagrams.app/](https://diagrams.app/)

Have a good time. Lukas

~~~
lukaskubanek
BTW you can also follow us on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/diagramsapp](https://twitter.com/diagramsapp)

------
masklinn
Y'know what'd be useful?

ASCII export, so I can put nice diagrams in comments and docstrings. Also
possibly (assuming those nice diagrams are unambiguous) a parsing bridge which
lets me convert them into data.

~~~
nosequel
I use Monodraw
([https://monodraw.helftone.com/](https://monodraw.helftone.com/)), it is
perfect for this.

~~~
lprd
+1 for monodraw! Great application!

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thegambit
We use yEd, it's a free, cross platform written in Java that's served us well
for many years.

[https://www.yworks.com/products/yed](https://www.yworks.com/products/yed)

~~~
khendron
I looked at yEd, and dropped it because it doesn't seem to support rotating
shapes. I was quite surprised, since that is a fundamental feature of most
drawing applications.

~~~
ygra
yEd is actually not really a drawing application, as you cannot (easily) draw
generic drawings. What you see and edit is always a graph, consisting of nodes
and edges.

For yEd the lack of rotating shapes is a deliberate decision based on
implementation difficulty (it's based on an older yFiles library version),
workarounds are available (importing arbitrary shapes), and the fact that in a
graph drawing application there are several things that don't play well with
rotated nodes, such as automatic layout and ports. For yEd Live we are
considering to add the feature, but we're still trying to figure out how to
lessen the impact where things don't work well together. After all, automatic
layout is one of our main selling points. We have already implemented
rotatable nodes as a demo [1], so simply adding that to yEd Live would be
trivial from a technical standpoint, but we like to care about UX as well.

Other applications may not have the same constraints (graph vs. generic
drawing) or may disregard some of the problems (e.g. in draw.io you get
overlapping shapes when you arrange a diagram with rotated nodes, since for
the arrange feature all nodes are apparently axis-aligned and not rotated).

[1]
[https://live.yworks.com/demos/complete/rotatablenodes/index....](https://live.yworks.com/demos/complete/rotatablenodes/index.html)

------
therealmarv
I was using yed and I'm very happy with it (although it is using Java
internally):
[https://www.yworks.com/downloads#yEd](https://www.yworks.com/downloads#yEd)

~~~
clawoo
I was just about to recommend it. I've been using it on a Mac for a while now
and it's been more than enough for my diagramming needs.

------
molszanski
I would like to share another gem in this category:
[https://whimsical.co](https://whimsical.co) One can design some sleek looking
flowchart in minutes. Super time saver.

------
asdkhadsj
So here's a question I've been wanting to figure out for ages:

Are there any resources you recommend for learning to make good diagrams? Ie,
I love documenting things but I don't have experience in drawing diagrams. I
don't know conventions for displaying order of execution, what arrows _should_
indicate _(in A- >B is A giving information to be? is B requesting information
from A? etc)_.

Are there any good tutorials/classes/whatever on drawing good diagrams? Good
at conveying information, but also consistent with what educated people would
expect?

~~~
Jtsummers
I'm not the biggest fan of UML _everywhere_ , but one benefit of it is that
certain diagram types are standardized.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language)

Check out interaction diagrams for what you describe. Two parties (A and B)
would be represented as two columns, moving down the diagram means moving
forward in time. The arrow going from one to the other is a message (either an
actual message or a function call or something). So A->B means A is signaling
(the text and context describe how) B. If B is requesting information, you'd
have two arrows. First B<-A, and then A->B with the response (attempted plain
text version):

    
    
       t A     B
       0 |     |
       1 |---->| A sends data to B
       2 |     |
       3 |<----| B requests more information from A
       4 |---->| A responds
    

A and B could be people, processes, classes/objects, servers, whatever. The
interaction points are described with the context of the diagram and text.
(NB: t is not meant to be explicit here, I've included it to illustrate the
passage of time going down the diagram.)

~~~
AstroJetson
If you just want a sequence diagram like that I suggest
[https://www.websequencediagrams.com/](https://www.websequencediagrams.com/)

It's now as a website, but I have the server version and use it at least once
a week to crank out interactions

------
aratno
My favorite tool for flow charts is Whimsical. It offers just the right amount
of control and the output charts look fantastic.

[https://whimsical.co/flowcharts/](https://whimsical.co/flowcharts/)

~~~
betageek
That's really nice, usually when I start playing with something like this the
UI glitches out or is just un-intuitive but this one is pretty solid, nice
work.

~~~
lucasverra
I've used ~10 times, it works pretty great. adding icons as easy is very nice

------
delib
For less structured diagrams, I really like Scapple:
[https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview)

------
eddyg
Worth mentioning Draw.io: [https://about.draw.io](https://about.draw.io) which
can also be run totally "offline".

The types of diagrams you can create is quite extensive:
[https://about.draw.io/features/examples/](https://about.draw.io/features/examples/)

and the diagrams generated are easily integrated into MediaWiki installations,
with full editability.

 _draw.io online is a free-to-license web application for everyone. It is
completely free to use for any purpose, there is no premium pay-for
functionality, watermarking, or other limitations. You own the content you
produce with draw.io and may use it for any purpose, including commercially.
We don’t sell your personal information or data. We don’t store your data. You
own your data and the application is open source._

Code here:
[https://github.com/jgraph/drawio](https://github.com/jgraph/drawio)

------
akuji1993
So, are you actually getting access to the Alpha when you sign up or are we
just getting grabbed to someday down the line get Beta access?

I'd advise you to post this again when you have an actual software to show,
that people can test out. I won't sign up for anything and I believe a lot of
people don't really want anymore newsletters and sales pitches in their inbox.

------
khannate
I'm surprised that no one in this thread has mentioned TikZ yet. I've always
found it easy to use and sufficient for my needs.

~~~
copperx
Yes, I was especially confused when I saw Monodraw (do you really illustrate
your documents with ASCII?!?), But no mention of TikZ.

------
AdieuToLogic
A few people have mentioned alternative diagramming software projects as well
as a desire for ASCII output. To this end, I'll throw in a mention of
Graphviz[0] and Graph::Easy[1]. While I have not used the latter, I have used
Graphviz/DOT and can recommend giving it consideration.

0 - [http://graphviz.org/](http://graphviz.org/)

1 - [https://codeyarns.com/2017/10/21/how-to-convert-dot-graph-
to...](https://codeyarns.com/2017/10/21/how-to-convert-dot-graph-to-ascii/)

------
foxes
Maybe it's a bit dated but IPE was always easy to use.

[https://github.com/otfried/ipe](https://github.com/otfried/ipe)

It would be nice to improve the interface a bit.

------
turnersd
What will pricing structure look like? Free? One time? Subscription?

------
pyman
I’m still waiting for the missing “free” diagram editor for Mac. Or, even
better: “Open source”.

Because most decent Mac apps become shareware once they hit version 1.0.

Also, there’s no doubt in my mind that all these utility apps will be web-
based in the future. Google Docs and Google Drawings are great examples of
this.

Having said that, I wish you the best of luck with your project.

------
bluetidepro
In the meantime before this launches, shout out to the people over at
[https://whimsical.co/](https://whimsical.co/) for launching this product
earlier this year. I've been using that (browser based), and loving it.
Excited to see what this app is once it launches.

~~~
zumu
Is there any way to do sequence diagrams with that?

~~~
ygra
It seems to have purpose-built interactions for certain kinds of diagrams,
foremost flowcharts. This is a major benefit for those kinds of diagrams where
you can then tailor the editing gestures towards things that make sense while
editing, but of course may not work so well for general-purpose diagrams or
other special kinds.

------
siruncledrew
This is pretty cool. I typicallly use Drakon, which is an old but good program
with a lot of programmtic diagramming capability: [https://github.com/stepan-
mitkin/drakon_editor](https://github.com/stepan-mitkin/drakon_editor)

------
eevilspock
I often prefer to draw diagrams on paper _, take photo and then use software
to covert it to SVG. Ideally I find a good too that can convert it to an
easily editable format. Any ideas?

_ I think better on paper. Or I'm on the go and have to get my idea down.

------
leejoramo
Their introductory blog post talks about UML being part of the inspiration for
this project. If Diagrams uses UML as its file format, or has first rate UML
export, this would be a standout feature that sets it apart from Omni Graffle
and the like.

------
MistahKoala
I dislike the way fledgling projects don't provide any details about pricing.
Even if they haven't figured out the model they want to go with, just a simple
statement saying as much is helpful and transparent.

------
reaperducer
_Diagrams for macOS will be released later this year_

Draw.io has a macOS version right now. Works pretty good, especially for a
free program. Though it's clearly a port and uses some non-standard interface
conventions.

------
Angostura
How will this compare with Omnigraffle in terms of features and pricing?

------
hokumguru
I've found monodraw to be very useful:
[https://monodraw.helftone.com/](https://monodraw.helftone.com/)

------
khendron
For simple box diagrams, I usually just use the Google Drawings, one of the
Google Drive applications. It's free and pretty damn good.

------
kiwee
Multi-platform isn't a thing anymore?

~~~
Jeremy1026
To be fair, it never really was. Mac and Linux were always after thoughts to
Windows. Now things are trending towards Mac first, leaving Linux and Windows
looking outside in.

~~~
copperx
In what world do you live that apps are created Mac first?

~~~
MistahKoala
Presumably the design/visualisation one.

------
chvid
Why is this an eu sponsored (?) project?

~~~
mtmail
Seems to be specific for the Sachsen region (a state in Germany) to reduce
unemployment. I see they offer 20k Euro (to be paid back) for new businesses,
also money for starting a secondary education (50%) and re-joining the
workforce after long unemployment (funds partly reimburses employers).
[http://strukturfonds.sachsen.de/esf.html](http://strukturfonds.sachsen.de/esf.html)

To incorporate a GmbH company (which is similar to an Inc or Limited) you need
25k Euro in Germany.

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wolframhempel
I'd love to know if calling it "diagrams" is a fantastic or terrible move in
terms of SEO?

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maxvirrozeito
I am wondering how it compares to draw.io which, although online, has been
pretty good in my experience.

------
bane
How does this compare with omnigraffle and yed?

------
jordache
the color theme in the example screenshot leaves much to be desired. It has
that out of the box Vizio look n' feel

------
_jss
Is there a method for HN to get beta access?

------
jlft
LibreOffice Draw is a good free solution.

------
ur-whale
A Mac-only app?

The 90's are on the horn, they want to know when this will be shrinked-wrapped
and sold at Best Buy.

Why is this even on HN?

~~~
saagarjha
I don’t see your point. Why shouldn’t this be on Hacker News?

