4 ms·

For all sorts of diagrams, this software is awesome: yEd https://www.yworks.com/products/yed https://www.yworks.com/products/yed Favorite feature: automatical

by yboris 7y ago

For all sorts of diagrams, this software is awesome: yEd https://www.yworks.com/products/yed https://www.yworks.com/products/yed Favorite feature: automatically reorganize the chart according to your preferences/constraints (e.g. fewer line intersections, hub-spoke, hierarchical, etc)

skrebbel 7y ago
Would like to second yed. I've been told that it feels a bit non-native outside Windows, but it's so fast to make diagrams with it, it's nuts. It has some weird defaults though, eg the "create node on click" is weird. Turn that off :-) It has lovely alignment features, making it super easy to make clear diagrams. It doesn't align things to a grid, but to surrounding nodes/edges in a really nice way. Try putting two nodes besides one another, and then a third one next to it. It'll auto-align the spacing so the three boxes are evenly spaced.
- ygra 7y ago
  (yWorks employee and developer (though not on yEd) here.) Thanks for the kind words. One note: yEd does have grid snapping (look for the grid-like icon in the toolbar or View > Grid). Personally, though, I rarely need the grid, as the normal snapping features work rather well for quickly making things line up or the same size. Also, automatic layout takes care of many alignment needs :-) There's also Tools > Snap to Grid for a one-time grid snapping operation of everything (or a selection). Didn't even know that one existed until now.
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    Well aware, but like you said,you don't need the grid because the gridless snapping generally works even better. Compliment the team for a great app! Inventing great UX isn't trivial and you guys aced it.
roland35 7y ago
I also use yEd for UML and other related diagrams. As mentioned the auto-organization is great, and you can also separately re-route signals and labels. I have used yEd for hardware diagrams as well, although I still haven't found a great way to draw out busses of signals between nodes (to be clear I haven't found anything besides manual drawing which works!)
- ygra 7y ago
  There's a bus-like edge router under Layout > Edge Routing > Orthogonal / Bus-style. This may require some tweaking of the settings for your particular drawing. https://i.imgur.com/YV3NFAQ.png https://i.imgur.com/YV3NFAQ.png
  - roland35 7y ago
    Thanks for the tip! That looks good! After playing around I found what I was actually thinking about is called "channels" and it works well! http://docs.yworks.com/yfiles/doc/developers-guide/figures/cer_grid.jpg http://docs.yworks.com/yfiles/doc/developers-guide/figures/c...
jspdown 7y ago
The automatic rearrangement feature based on predefined layouts is incredibly useful. I strongly encourage people interested in this software to also read their blog. https://www.yworks.com/blog/projects-optical-graph-recognition https://www.yworks.com/blog/projects-optical-graph-recogniti...
tannhaeuser 7y ago
yEd isn't exactly modern-looking though. I've recently used it on Ubuntu 16.04 but my colleague on Ubuntu 18.04 couldn't because the menu or window handles were cut off. As IntelliJ shows, using Java/Swing is no excuse for an app to look like a Windows 3.1 app migrated over to Windows95. But then UML is from a time and mindset when win32-like and Java-like OOP and Hungary notation were sold to people and I guess a certain amount of retro design must feel authentic to UML.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Not only IntelliJ, "Filthy Rich Clients" (http://filthyrichclients.org/ http://filthyrichclients.org/) is a must read for anyone that cares about doing proper UIs in Swing. And being aware of component libraries like JGoodies (http://www.jgoodies.com/ http://www.jgoodies.com/).
- ygra 7y ago
  (Disclaimer: yWorks employee and developer here) We do have a more modern web-based graph editor: https://www.yworks.com/yed-live/ https://www.yworks.com/yed-live/ It may lack features you need, as the idea was a less cluttered and more modern UI, not to bring over everything and the kitchen sink. As far as yEd Desktop goes, Java becomes an increasingly unattractive platform for desktop development, with Swing showing varying degrees of brokenness on different platforms and Java releases. The new hotness right now seems to be to either get working printing or working High-DPI support, but not both in the same Java release. It's due for a minor UI overhaul, though, and this may come in the future. We probably cannot and won't completely restructure yEd's UI (such things also serve well to piss off long-time users).
  - tannhaeuser 7y ago
    If Java becomes increasingly unattractive, what are you eying as replacement? I won't defend Java/Swing, but at least it does HiDPI (in contrast to eg. JavaFX and RCP last I checked, even though printing is broken w/ HiDPI as you said). There aren't that many alternatives for cross-platform desktop apps (qtk comes to mind, but it's a rather big departure from Java I guess).

by yboris 7y ago

skrebbel 7y ago

Would like to second yed. I've been told that it feels a bit non-native outside Windows, but it's so fast to make diagrams with it, it's nuts. It has some weird defaults though, eg the "create node on click" is weird. Turn that off :-) It has lovely alignment features, making it super easy to make clear diagrams. It doesn't align things to a grid, but to surrounding nodes/edges in a really nice way. Try putting two nodes besides one another, and then a third one next to it. It'll auto-align the spacing so the three boxes are evenly spaced.

ygra 7y ago
(yWorks employee and developer (though not on yEd) here.) Thanks for the kind words. One note: yEd does have grid snapping (look for the grid-like icon in the toolbar or View > Grid). Personally, though, I rarely need the grid, as the normal snapping features work rather well for quickly making things line up or the same size. Also, automatic layout takes care of many alignment needs :-) There's also Tools > Snap to Grid for a one-time grid snapping operation of everything (or a selection). Didn't even know that one existed until now.
- skrebbel 7y ago
  Well aware, but like you said,you don't need the grid because the gridless snapping generally works even better. Compliment the team for a great app! Inventing great UX isn't trivial and you guys aced it.

roland35 7y ago

I also use yEd for UML and other related diagrams. As mentioned the auto-organization is great, and you can also separately re-route signals and labels. I have used yEd for hardware diagrams as well, although I still haven't found a great way to draw out busses of signals between nodes (to be clear I haven't found anything besides manual drawing which works!)

ygra 7y ago
There's a bus-like edge router under Layout > Edge Routing > Orthogonal / Bus-style. This may require some tweaking of the settings for your particular drawing. https://i.imgur.com/YV3NFAQ.png https://i.imgur.com/YV3NFAQ.png
- roland35 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip! That looks good! After playing around I found what I was actually thinking about is called "channels" and it works well! http://docs.yworks.com/yfiles/doc/developers-guide/figures/cer_grid.jpg http://docs.yworks.com/yfiles/doc/developers-guide/figures/c...

jspdown 7y ago

The automatic rearrangement feature based on predefined layouts is incredibly useful. I strongly encourage people interested in this software to also read their blog. https://www.yworks.com/blog/projects-optical-graph-recognition https://www.yworks.com/blog/projects-optical-graph-recogniti...

tannhaeuser 7y ago

yEd isn't exactly modern-looking though. I've recently used it on Ubuntu 16.04 but my colleague on Ubuntu 18.04 couldn't because the menu or window handles were cut off. As IntelliJ shows, using Java/Swing is no excuse for an app to look like a Windows 3.1 app migrated over to Windows95. But then UML is from a time and mindset when win32-like and Java-like OOP and Hungary notation were sold to people and I guess a certain amount of retro design must feel authentic to UML.

pjmlp 7y ago
Not only IntelliJ, "Filthy Rich Clients" (http://filthyrichclients.org/ http://filthyrichclients.org/) is a must read for anyone that cares about doing proper UIs in Swing. And being aware of component libraries like JGoodies (http://www.jgoodies.com/ http://www.jgoodies.com/).
ygra 7y ago
(Disclaimer: yWorks employee and developer here) We do have a more modern web-based graph editor: https://www.yworks.com/yed-live/ https://www.yworks.com/yed-live/ It may lack features you need, as the idea was a less cluttered and more modern UI, not to bring over everything and the kitchen sink. As far as yEd Desktop goes, Java becomes an increasingly unattractive platform for desktop development, with Swing showing varying degrees of brokenness on different platforms and Java releases. The new hotness right now seems to be to either get working printing or working High-DPI support, but not both in the same Java release. It's due for a minor UI overhaul, though, and this may come in the future. We probably cannot and won't completely restructure yEd's UI (such things also serve well to piss off long-time users).
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  If Java becomes increasingly unattractive, what are you eying as replacement? I won't defend Java/Swing, but at least it does HiDPI (in contrast to eg. JavaFX and RCP last I checked, even though printing is broken w/ HiDPI as you said). There aren't that many alternatives for cross-platform desktop apps (qtk comes to mind, but it's a rather big departure from Java I guess).