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Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

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Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#131

Post by alangibson »

specialdragon wrote: post #27

http://plantuml.com I've been doing a lot of flow diagrams and PlantUML has been invaluable. I specifically like it because sharing the flow means sharing some text, which itself is vaguely human-readable. There's an online renderer (bottom of the page in the above link), which means simple diagrams are also quick to create and view. It's got a few different modes that it understands but I'd definitely add it to the…

I love PlantUML so much that I made my own Confluence plugin Called PowerPlantUML: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219122/powerplantuml...

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#132

Post by whoisjuan »

anonfunction wrote: post #53

I use Monodraw[1] on my Mac, I really like it because it's ascii rather than image or vector based which makes including the diagrams in markdown really easy. It also has a really simple UI that allows me to quickly map out my thoughts so I use it for a lot of things. 1. https://monodraw.helftone.com/

This is actually pretty nice. Sometimes to explain stuff and flows, I draw shitty graphics in emails by using a combination of ASCII characters. This is like the pro version of that.

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#133

Post by alangibson »

becauseiam wrote: post #32

Graphviz for simple diagrams that can represented with basic shapes. PlantUML for sequence diagrams, state machines and the likes. Powerpoint/Keynote for things that are presentations - and usually I will export one of the above formats as SVG, clean it up a bit, turn into PDF and drop into the slides. As a general rule all my diagrams must be vector based, and no bitmap objects should be embedded. Confluence with Gr…

If you're using PlantUML on Confluence, check out the free plugin that I threw together: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219122/powerplantuml...

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#136

Post by ivansavz »

occamschainsaw wrote: post #130

I work a lot with probabilistic graphical models. I use Daft for that. Daft: http://daft-pgm.org I also work with Turing machines and other automata/complexity stuff. I use TikZ for those purposes. It also seems to be versatile. TikZ: http://www.texample.net/tikz/

Daft seems pretty cool, but kind of verbose. You should check out this TikZ package for graphical models: https://github.com/jluttine/tikz-bayesnet

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#138

Post by grogenaut »

specialdragon wrote: post #27

http://plantuml.com I've been doing a lot of flow diagrams and PlantUML has been invaluable. I specifically like it because sharing the flow means sharing some text, which itself is vaguely human-readable. There's an online renderer (bottom of the page in the above link), which means simple diagrams are also quick to create and view. It's got a few different modes that it understands but I'd definitely add it to the…

Use plantuml a ton. Their google docs integration is quirky (it is hard to tell if you are going to edit the text in the doc or the diagram) but it's fast and anyone can edit it easily; I love it.

I use a combination of plant for sequence flows and lucid for arch diagrams.

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#139

Post by brewmarche »

charlesdaniels wrote: post #98

Depending on what type of diagram I need, I use one of: 1. LaTeX + TikZ - if my diagram is simple or lends itself well to the TikZ syntax, I can usually get it done quickly and have it look professional. 2. Graphviz - if I'm drawing anything that can be represented as a directed graph, Graphiviz is fantastic due to it's automatic positioning and layout. 3. ipe ( http://ipe.otfried.org/ ) - for heavy lifting where nei…

I second ipe, used it together with LaTeX for my theses. It looks great, gives you many options while being an easy-to-use WYSIWYG tool and integrates with LaTeX typesetting (you can typeset in the diagram). The PDF export makes it also usable in other contexts.

Re: Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

#140

Post by grogenaut »

To me it's less about making gorgeous diagrams and making shared collaborative diagrams. IF other people working on or reading the document can't tweak the diagrams easily then they're not useful to me or make me do a lot of extra work. So I prefer things like Plant UML or Lucid Charts for docs / diagrams / arch stuff.

I also have gotten to the point where I care more about speed / consistency / access than pretty. you can spend HOURS just tweaking color schemes on diagrams. If we're going to take the diagram to print in marketing material, sure spend that time. If I'm trying to get an idea across to others, nah, not worth it. To me it's a parallel to the go formatter argument.

Also auto-layout tools like plantuml mean I spend minutes on things insead of endlessly tweaking things.

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