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Design structured diagrams, built to increase your team's trust in your docs
- darkwater 5y ago"Error: could not handle the request" looks like HN hug of death did its job.
- JacobDesigns 5y agoTry this? http://icepanel.io/ http://icepanel.io/
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agoI've had really bad experiences trying to serve web workloads from lambda or cloud functions type services. The ramp up period to scale for a sudden influx of traffic is ridiculously slow. basically it can't handle a thundering herd at all unless you pre-provision enough concurrency which is incredibly expensive. I'm sure these kinds of services have good use cases for back office async tasks and things like that, but for web workloads it doesn't really work.
- victor96 5y agoWe're only using cloud functions for the initial redirect for some links, looks like we're hitting some kind of quota limit in our cloud environment. Should be fixed now.
- syntaxing 5y agoNice, I’m pretty excited to try this out for my personal projects. Been looking for something like lucidcharts but meant for code architectures.
- GordonS 5y agoI usually use Visio for diagrams like this. It's a very powerful tool, but it's expensive, and really fiddly to use such that everything is aligned and sized the way I want - I invariably spend far too long adjusting size and position. Something like this could be really useful, and I'm keen to give it a try! If the founder is here, a question: what formats can you export diagrams in? My biggest fears in using something like this would be lock-in, or it shutting down and losing everything.
- humps 5y agoI was considering Visio until I saw the price, the only alternative I found was MyDraw[1], which looks competent and is much cheaper ($69). I haven't used it yet though. In the past I've relied on Dia[2]. [1] https://www.mydraw.com/ https://www.mydraw.com/ [2] http://dia-installer.de/ http://dia-installer.de/
- victor96 5y agoHey Gordon, It'd be great to hear your thoughts/feedback on the tool. Please feel free to reach out to us. In terms your comment about lock-in I understand your fear and I think a lot of companies will share this. We currently offer PDF/PNG export however due to the interactive nature of our diagrams we're looking into how we can provide an interactive export. An IcePanel file is also an idea we're looking into. We'd love to work with you if you have any specific ideas in this area.
- toss1 5y agoA native app would also allow you to access different market segments. E.g., I work with a fair amount of DOD-controlled information, and storing it in a cloud is not an option. I'd be all over an app like this that allowed us to use local storage.
- ta988 5y agoHave a look at diagrams.net, you can run it locally, and there are quite a few interactive elements (panels you can close and this kind of stuff).
- Datagenerator 5y agoHaving used Visio and Diagrams.net, Visio really is the least productive one. Constantly fighting with the unpleasantness of applying little tweaks made it my 3rd choice. 1) Diagrams.net 2) PlantUML 3) Visio
- JacobDesigns 5y ago
- css 5y agoA question I always have for diagramming software is how it handles refactoring. This is often the most frustrating part of every tool. How does IcePanel improve this experience? Group selection and dragging to hopefully have enough room for something new is not workable in complex diagrams.
- Veuxdo 5y agoFor diagrams that are long-lived and refactorable, diagrams-as-code is really your only option. Changing complex diagrams with drag-and-drop interfaces is a nightmare.
- ta988 5y agoI wish there would be a mixture of diagrams.net and mermaid.
- Veuxdo 5y agoWhat would that ideal mixture look like to you?
- ta988 5y agodrawio using the templating engine of mermaid. So it would have a "restricted mode" that matches roughly to what mermaid would output.
- kitd 5y agodraw.io/diagrams.net has a mermaid plugin https://github.com/nopeslide/drawio_mermaid_plugin https://github.com/nopeslide/drawio_mermaid_plugin
- ta988 5y agoFantastic, thanks.
- JacobDesigns 5y ago
- vishnumohandas 5y agoThat's a beautiful website. Love the colors, mascot and the way you've laid out the information.
- f6v 5y agoTools are great, but here's the million-dollar question: how do you make people maintain the docs?
- JacobDesigns 5y agoWe have a few ideas in that area revolving around our Slackbot, keep watching for our next releases for more details.
- finnh 5y agoI actually have an approach here: ASCII diagrams, so i can embed them in code or a README. It keeps things simple - you can't have a super complex ASCII diagram; even crossing lines look terrible - and there's at least a fighting chance that when someone changes the code they will at least notice the diagram is out of date. To prevent insanity, I use a tool to help draw them: Monodraw in my case.
- Adiqq 5y agoAnother question: how do you make people maintain quality docs? Sometimes I start to doubt, if it's even possible to maintain some order with bigger solutions, because even if you can force yourself to document well everything, there will be always people that either don't know solution well enough, they don't know how to prepare good documentation or they don't want to bother with it.
- deanclatworthy 5y agoHaving fallen back in love with PlantUML recently I’ll never use a proprietary tool that doesn’t have declarative syntax. System diagrams and documentation are a crucial part of any software business and one that is regularly out of date as people end up using tools like draw.io which nobody knows how to get access to or use.
- Veuxdo 5y ago+1 for declarative syntax. Diagrams-as-code is great, but diagramming in a programming language (e.g. Python) is... weird.
- jasau 5y agoJust mentioning that programming language doesn't rule out the option to have declarative syntax for an API.
- drewpc 5y ago> I’ll never use a proprietary tool that doesn’t have declarative syntax Can you provide an example of what you're referring to?
- petepete 5y agoPlantUML diagrams are generated from plain text, they can easily be embedded in markdown or even in code (I'm sure there's a plug-in for that!) Plenty of examples here. https://plantuml.com/state-diagram https://plantuml.com/state-diagram
- gregmac 5y agoAnd importantly, because they're text, they can live in a version-controlled environment. I mainly use them within Confluence, and even there you can diff between versions to see changes.
- mattm 5y agoWow, this is interesting. Are there any diagramming tools that allow importing PlantUML to display them a little nicer than the examples?
- rubicks 5y agoIs anyone using dot and/or graphviz in earnest for something like this?
- camyule 5y agoPlantUML uses a declarative approach to diagrams and works well with dot and graphviz.
- logbiscuitswave 5y agoI’ve tried playing with graphviz and dot for some system architecture diagrams - mostly because it integrates well into our internal MediaWiki site and, it’s … ok I guess. I’ve found it pretty easy to rapidly throw together some reasonable diagrams with relatively little effort but where it really seems to fall down is with the layouts themselves. I’ve found that just so hard to get things to lay out how I want them to and the syntax for this seems particularly arcane to master. I usually just give up after a while and end up with a layout I hate but that at least conveys the information I want to convey. I’m probably making things hard upon myself because I manually crank out the markup by hand and brute force slog through it until it looks ok. Reading through this thread made me realize that I could potentially be using PlantUML or something similar to make this less awful.
- cdnsteve 5y agoCan these be part of the source code repo and attached from ADRs?
- andreygrehov 5y agoI've always felt that these type of tools shouldn't have a traditional home page with sign up, sign in, etc. If you go to Excalidraw's website, it immediately launches the application for you to start using it. If you need extra features, only then you go to a page that provides details, pricing, etc. This is a beautiful pattern that makes these type of tools a daily habit for people to use. I don't want to create an account to try the app or use it in its most basic form.
- kpwagner 5y agoI get that, but they want to collect your email to improve marketing. If the product is strong enough it may not matter. Practically speaking, I think getting user signup info is pretty important.
- nerdponx 5y agoPop up a modal after they've been using it for a while. Don't shove it in my face the first time I visit.
- jwalton 5y agoThe thing is, we all know they want our email address so they can market to us, so there’s absolutely zero chance of me ever entering a real email address into that box.
- imglorp 5y agoI don't get it. Do marketing mails ever sell anything? Or changing the name of the company or any of those other transparent manipulations? It's insulting. The product should wow the user and sell itself and then the user will come asking to pay for more features. I've bought many products this way. There's no way I'm signing up for these things.
- drewcoo 5y agoWhat on earth do diagrams have to do with trust in docs? Docs that are useful, accurate, and up to date would increase trust.
- JacobDesigns 5y agoWe agree - useful, accurate, and up to date docs are what increases trust! We're bringing docs closer to the diagrams to visually explain your system in smaller chunks. We've found docs often accompany diagrams, and they become out of date as soon as they're exported! We think instead of diagrams being in docs, docs should be in the diagram.
- jmarcher 5y agoAlternatively, they can live together. For example, I ended up writing this to integrate diagrams and Sphinx. https://github.com/j-martin/sphinx-diagrams https://github.com/j-martin/sphinx-diagrams Similarly there's https://pypi.org/project/sphinxcontrib-plantuml/ https://pypi.org/project/sphinxcontrib-plantuml/ and https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/ https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/ (among other similar tools).
- aliswe 5y agoEventually your docs will be updated and noone will be around to update the included diagrams. And when the users (the developers!) notice the discrepancy, trust will decrease.
- powerapple 5y agoI have been using whimsical for diagrams and prototyping prototypes. Some of my colleagues are converted after they have seen it. The ease of use is the best I have seen so far. It is bold and easy to read. Seeing the demo page, I have to ask: why do we stay with the traditional black, grey and white colors for diagrams?
- kauboy 5y agoi love the ease, but i wish they had better support for importing/exporting from/to other tools like drawio and plantuml.
- marsven_422 5y agoWhat ever happened to the spirit of open source... Everyone trying to make a quick buck on some SaS scheme.
- kqr2 5y agoAny thoughts oh lucidchart : https://www.lucidchart.com/ https://www.lucidchart.com/
- systemvoltage 5y agoDark diagrams make for terrible documentation IMO.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoI think this is partially why I started to hate crypto. I was explaining to people that they were getting scammed ( they said they bought one coin) and i was looking it up since I didn't know it, so i concluded that they were scammed. They just didn't believe me and said i was a liar. Their family friend who walked away with >50k would never do that to them. A lot of people just don't understand cryptocurrency and greed had them losing their common sense, i was truelly disgusted by this. Even as I had crypto until 2017 and earned a reasonable amount with it, I've started to become a non-believer in it. The existing coins are just an example of the blockchain and while the tech is great, an existing coin will never be adopted by a country. So it's futile to believe that a certain coin will become the standard. Authorities ( for good reason) will never allow that to happen.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoUgh, i commented this reply on the wrong thread. Sorry
- ThinkBeat 5y agoThis seems to be based on C4 which apparently is an heir to UML. I love UML. I know that is not dominant sentiment so it might get downvoted. I worked with UML over decades now. I refuse to use Visio, Draw.io or PlantUML for that part. I use a tool that knows UML and is constructed to quickly build UML diagrams. Doing a Sequence diagram in draw io is something I find painful and slow. My favorite tool is Visual Paradigm. It has the best intelligence for quickly building diagrams. It also features two way code generation. You can get diagrams created from code, and you can modify diagram to modify code. From that you can get a lot of help (it is far from perfect) to create needed diagrams and also in maintaining them. I have also used Sparx Enterprise Architect which is also very good. In so far as creating higher level diagrams that Icepanel is most centered on, it should be greatly aided by a set of tools to discover and map artifacts in an automated manner. Keeping diagrams up to date is a huge chore that it is nice to have help with. Having to recode, my code, in a document for PlantUML is not something I could do either. There are some great tools for generating PlantUML diagrams and those are great. We use some of that to generate certain diagrams automatically in our CI pipeline. When it is done running all diagrams are up to do date and placed in our documentation. We use it to show each one of our microservices with a lot of data around then. And another one displays a lot of information about each of our container images. Took a while to get that setup right.
- DistressedDrone 5y agoWhat do you think of this one?
- simonireilly 5y agoI tend to use .drawio.png extension and then collaborate inside the repo in real-time using vscode live share (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/live-share/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/live-share/) and the drawio extension together (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hediet.vscode-drawio https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hediet.v...) Then, in markdown/readmes use . It will render locally, and in GitHub, and also if you use remark or something like that, it will still render as an image.
- Gehinnn 5y agoAuthor of the drawio extension here, nice to see you using it! I can highly recommend using the *.drawio.svg extension though! Svgs also work in Github readmes and perform much better overall. They also work much better over liveshare!
- ckdarby 5y agoThank you for your work. Best extension ever.
- simonireilly 5y agoWow, thanks for the tip! Love the extension, great work
- d--b 5y agoWhat tools like these need is monitoring capacity. Hook your diagrams to your logs and health status, and then you have a compelling reason to actually keep them up to date.
- devgoldm 5y agoYeah I was thinking something like this too, hopefully someone makes this if it hasn't been already. If the diagrams had some linkage to your code you'd be able to see what a failed unit test means in the overall context of the app, what code is used in which block, what protocol is used for connections between blocks, a summary of what each block does etc... A monitoring tool as you say - and since you'll use it often you'll probably keep it up to date
- mienski 5y agoKind of more limited to a 200OK-level health check, but Structurizr does support basic checks like this (https://structurizr.com/help/health-checks https://structurizr.com/help/health-checks) - though I do love the idea of being able to add links to an object so you could jump the log page of that service in your logging platform.
- rainhacker 5y agoI am searching for quite sometime an application which can detect, and convert hand drawn shapes on a computer (using mouse or stylus) to proper shapes. This will make life so much easier for someone who makes architecture diagrams frequently. The closest offering I could find was with iPad 'Shape Recognition'[1]. But the number of shapes it detects is limited. It also does not appear to be really - meant for or integrated with - tools like draw.io. [1] https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-14/features/ https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-14/features/
- zoom6628 5y agoThis looks nice. Personally I prefer draw.io desktop version for large complex diagrams, and use mermaid for smaller diagrams such as sequence diagrams.
- alienreborn 5y agoWe use http://diagrams.mingrammer.com http://diagrams.mingrammer.com in our team. Diagrams from python code.
- macintux 5y agoNeeds a copy editor. “Periodically” is spelled two different ways, both wrong.
- JacobDesigns 5y agoThanks for taking the voluntary role ;)
- rajandatta 5y agoThe Icepanel.io seems like an excellent start to an interesting project. But seems very early/alpha. Key features - be able to distinguish between connections flowing into a hub (Outlines); have bi-directional flows to illustrate different data exchanges; colours; lack of due to huge Pro sign up ad in Diagrams view are all hinderances.
- GnomeSaiyan 5y agoI really want to check this out but whenever I try to create an account I keep getting "broken link" errors.
- victor96 5y agoPlease give it another go, I've replied to your support email.