On Thu, 2013-01-03 at 08:18 -0500, Ricardo Chung wrote:

On Saturday, December 29, 2012 04:03:50 PM Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

Hi all,

I'm looking for an alternative diagram editor (mainly for networks) At work some use visio, that has nice libraries, but is handling connection in a horrible way.

I was starting to use "dia" but it's output gave me harsh comments from co-workers.

So, any other alternatives? Someone pointed towards yED (fom http://www.yworks.com) But the fact that you have to download a bin blob (it is neither in the OBS:editors nor in anyones home:/ dir), which you have run is a bit suspicious. (perhaps i'm paranoid or so)

Hans

Have you tried Calligra Flow lately? It's a nice complement to work with.

Hope this can help you.

Regards,

No, not yet, but i will certainly do.

I'll guess that the biggest problem is that some stick-in-the-mud people consider any microsoft products as "defacto industry standard" and are unwilling to even try something else....

tnx for pointing, Hans

Am 03.01.2013 22:12, schrieb Doug:

On 01/03/2013 12:11 PM, Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

I'll guess that the biggest problem is that some stick-in-the-mud people consider any microsoft products as "defacto industry standard" and are unwilling to even try something else....

Whether you or the software devs like it or not, Miocrosoft Word and Excel *are* the defacto industry standards, and anyone who down't follow those standards is just out of luck!

That is fortunately nonsense these days. Big companies have to follow public standards. Otherwise their products would become a no go for many industries, certainly for public authorities, which appears not unrelated within this thread.

This, btw, is not the only industry standard, and others don't seem to draw such fire--think of pdf, mp3, dwg, etc.

PDF and MP3 a public standards by approved bodies. Exel and Word are merly programs. Anyone is free to use alternative programs to produce standard conformant PDF or ODF documents. Most office suites have import and export filters for compatibility with ancient proprietary formats. Those proprietary formats are often considered a pain to use even with original authoring software.

kind regards Kai-Uwe

* Doug dmcgarrett@optonline.net [01-03-13 16:14]:

On 01/03/2013 12:11 PM, Hans Witvliet wrote: /snip/

...

Have you tried Calligra Flow lately? It's a nice complement to work with.

Hope this can help you.

Regards, No, not yet, but i will certainly do.

I'll guess that the biggest problem is that some stick-in-the-mud people consider any microsoft products as "defacto industry standard" and are unwilling to even try something else....

tnx for pointing, Hans

Whether you or the software devs like it or not, Miocrosoft Word and Excel *are* the defacto industry standards, and anyone who down't follow those standards is just out of luck! This, btw, is not the only industry standard, and others don't seem to draw such fire--think of pdf, mp3, dwg, etc.

There was *no* reference to "word" or "excel" but to mickey$oft "products" of which there are many that adhere to no particular standard but what m$ wishes. In fact m$ defies *many* set standards as a way of controlling product and price, ie: "monopoly".

Sorry, after installing Calligra, found that its a different level of diagramming...

Incidentally, has anyone any suggestions to map/chart *thinking....that is a process towards a goal?

Freemind is limited because it doesn't do flow as well and dia or similar.

I just saw that Braindump from the Calligra group has mindmapping.

What I had in mind is something closer to the flowchart concept that Calligra flow appears to use. Some time ago I spent a decent amount of effort trying to find something but didn't find anything satisfactory.

I see that flow has a place to import stencils but a quick search doesn't seem to discover the place to obtain them.

Thanks,

-e

On Fri, 2013-01-04 at 11:09 -0500, Eric Gunther wrote:

not sure if one can use it on opensuse, but have you seen freemind?

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

also after a coincidental discovery,

libre office *draw also can do diagramming from the looks of it.

-e

On Thu, 2013-01-03 at 18:11 +0100, Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

On Thu, 2013-01-03 at 08:18 -0500, Ricardo Chung wrote:

...

On Saturday, December 29, 2012 04:03:50 PM Hans Witvliet wrote:

...

Hi all,

I'm looking for an alternative diagram editor (mainly for networks) At work some use visio, that has nice libraries, but is handling connection in a horrible way.

I was starting to use "dia" but it's output gave me harsh comments from co-workers.

So, any other alternatives? Someone pointed towards yED (fom http://www.yworks.com) But the fact that you have to download a bin blob (it is neither in the OBS:editors nor in anyones home:/ dir), which you have run is a bit suspicious. (perhaps i'm paranoid or so)

Hans

Have you tried Calligra Flow lately? It's a nice complement to work with.

Hope this can help you.

Regards,

No, not yet, but i will certainly do.

I'll guess that the biggest problem is that some stick-in-the-mud people consider any microsoft products as "defacto industry standard" and are unwilling to even try something else....

tnx for pointing, Hans

2 cents,

when I saw dia, it seemed rather stark. This was a while ago, but then, I am not an electrical engineer.

-e

On Fri, 2013-01-04 at 11:40 -0500, Anton Aylward wrote:

Eric Gunther said the following on 01/04/2013 11:09 AM:

...

not sure if one can use it on opensuse, but have you seen freemind?

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Freemind, ad it's more interesting fork, Freeplane, are MIND MAPPERS. They are not generic diagramming tools and don't have libraries of 'components'. They are great tools, for what they do, but doing up network diagrams is not part of that.

I'd still like to hear what the objections the OP's end users have to the output of Dia. Specifics as opposed to a generic "it ain't Microsoft", because we know full well that there are many GUI tools that do on Windows what MS-Office does, OpenOffice and LibreOffice among them. Is this an objection that might apply to other Windows-based diagramming tools?

I ask, because I grew up in England and was used to the way electronic circuit diagrams were drawn in English textbooks, but had problems when I came to North America because different conventions were used (e.g. in the ARRL handbooks). Is it just stylistic? Do the object to the "icons"? What?

-- "I don't mind a parasite, I object to a cut-rate one"

On 01/04/2013 11:40 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:

/snip/

I ask, because I grew up in England and was used to the way electronic circuit diagrams were drawn in English textbooks, but had problems when I came to North America because different conventions were used (e.g. in the ARRL handbooks). Is it just stylistic? Do the object to the "icons"? What?

For your information, the ARRL conventions are NOT all standard. Some of their diagrams and part notations are not what is used in industry, particularly industry that sells to the military. Some that come to mind: An op amp is never shown with a curved input side in industry--that convention went out with Burr-Brown's tube amplifiers 50 years ago. Diodes are not called D, they are called CR. And wires that cross other wires are never connected. If a connection is needed, then the two wires are offset. The connection dot is always used, but the reason that crossed wires are never connected is that the connection dot may disappear in reducing the schematic drawing to a smaller size, as for a service manual.

--doug, WA2SAY--retired RF engineer