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Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

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Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#61

Post by ailideex »

d--b wrote: post #55

The thing I’ve been wanting is to have a diagramming tool that can serve as a live health dashboard with links to logs. Infrastructure diagrams always get out of date, unless they’re looked at frequently. By hooking the diagrams with live status and logs, it becomes a tool that’s used daily. It would make logs easier to navigate and diagrams kept up to date.

If you just want links to logs then you can use draw.io and export an svg: https://svgshare.com/i/H7g.svg

If you want dynamically updating diagrams you can maybe consider some of the diagram creation generation tools listed here: https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor-diagram/#creating-a...

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#62

Post by joaomacp »

alixanderwang wrote: post #18
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #6

I like it, but just browsing the site quickly I’m not seeing something I’ve grown accustom to: sequence diagrams. My auth system for an embedded product to hit AWS is three players and fairly complex to explain. Makes sense to me as a sequence diagram, does anyone know if this option exists?

This is designed for sequences! You have to create a scenario (name of your sequence, eg “auth request”), and then you create frames for it. Frames are steps of a sequence. I used to use websequencediagrams.com for this btw, in case that fits your needs too!

I use a similar tool: sequencediagram.org

Seems to have very similar features, and can export to svg for free (in websequencediagrams.com it's a premium feature)

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#63

Post by simplyinfinity »

zzo38computer wrote: post #19

I would prefer to use local programs to make such things. Is there such a open source software that uses Xaw or just plain X window, preferably where the file format is a sequence of PostScript tokens (to make it easy to write a parser for the file format in PostScript (I also wrote a JSON parser in PostScript, so JSON would also work))?

Mermaid.js may be what you are looking for. Draw. Io is also open source and has desktop client

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#64

Post by caro_douglos »

alxlaz wrote: post #58

Can I nitpick two things about the website? I don't mean to be an asshole about it or anything, I just hope it can help in some way: - I think the mobile detection thing uses nothing but window size to determine if this is on a mobile browser or a desktop, so it mistakes my (definitely desktop) browser window for a mobile one. I know from my friends who do frontend stuff that reliably detecting a mobile browser isn't…

Are you using a Linux desktop?

Recently I ran into this more and more. Eventually it came down to Linux being in the user-agent causing a large chunk of sites to assume I was using android. This became apparent when gmail asked if I wanted to download the mail application when visiting their site with cookies cleared. Once the agent was changed I no longer get mobile type notifications (on my desktop).

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#65

Post by joantune »

Nice! I was just looking to convey entity diagrams to a client - and thought of doing them through something like Omnigraffle - this looks like it could do the job.

However - it doesn't seem to export itself well (the Print doesn't work - or something like a read only link would be enough)

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#66

Post by alixanderwang »

alxlaz wrote: post #58

Can I nitpick two things about the website? I don't mean to be an asshole about it or anything, I just hope it can help in some way: - I think the mobile detection thing uses nothing but window size to determine if this is on a mobile browser or a desktop, so it mistakes my (definitely desktop) browser window for a mobile one. I know from my friends who do frontend stuff that reliably detecting a mobile browser isn't…

Your nitpicks are absolutely welcome!

Re: sizing: interesting, that’s the first report of it failing, I indeed should do a require desktop version. Are you talking about the landing page or the app? The app uses javascript to detect, the landing page uses page width.

Re:spelling, plural of proper nouns should use apostrophes I think, no? Eg “how many Airbnb’s did you book”. I’m not sure if making those proper nouns was the right choice, I wanted to highlight that they were terms in the app.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words and feedback!

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#67

Post by alixanderwang »

joantune wrote: post #65

Nice! I was just looking to convey entity diagrams to a client - and thought of doing them through something like Omnigraffle - this looks like it could do the job. However - it doesn't seem to export itself well (the Print doesn't work - or something like a read only link would be enough)

There is a read only link, that’s what the demo is. Under the drop down for the diagram (hovering the diagram name in the top center), you can find a Presentation Mode. Then just share that link.

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#68

Post by halfdan »

alixanderwang wrote: post #66
alxlaz wrote: post #58

Can I nitpick two things about the website? I don't mean to be an asshole about it or anything, I just hope it can help in some way: - I think the mobile detection thing uses nothing but window size to determine if this is on a mobile browser or a desktop, so it mistakes my (definitely desktop) browser window for a mobile one. I know from my friends who do frontend stuff that reliably detecting a mobile browser isn't…

Your nitpicks are absolutely welcome! Re: sizing: interesting, that’s the first report of it failing, I indeed should do a require desktop version. Are you talking about the landing page or the app? The app uses javascript to detect, the landing page uses page width. Re:spelling, plural of proper nouns should use apostrophes I think, no? Eg “how many Airbnb’s did you book”. I’m not sure if making those proper nouns w…

Apostrophe-s marks possession. Plurals of regular nouns are always formed without apostrophes.

Plural of Airbnb is Airbnbs.

Compare this to "Airbnb's fifth year was terrific" where the apostrophe marks possession. Whose fifth year was terrific? Airbnb's.

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#69

Post by alixanderwang »

halfdan wrote: post #68
alixanderwang wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your nitpicks are absolutely welcome! Re: sizing: interesting, that’s the first report of it failing, I indeed should do a require desktop version. Are you talking about the landing page or the app? The app uses javascript to detect, the landing page uses page width. Re:spelling, plural of proper nouns should use apostrophes I think, no? Eg “how many Airbnb’s did you book”. I’m not sure if making those proper nouns w…

Apostrophe-s marks possession. Plurals of regular nouns are always formed without apostrophes. Plural of Airbnb is Airbnbs. Compare this to "Airbnb's fifth year was terrific" where the apostrophe marks possession. Whose fifth year was terrific? Airbnb's.

Wow why did I think proper nouns used apostrophes for plurals, oof. Fixed. Thank you and OP of comment!

Re: Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems

#70

Post by elbear »

wokwokwok wrote: post #25
alixanderwang wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I made a diagramming tool specifically for explaining systems. It's something that I felt like I could've needed at my previous engineering jobs when I was explaining some software architecture or concept that were complex and I had trouble expressing on a single image diagram. Would love to hear HN's thoughts and feedback!

I've often needed something like this, but, sadly, once again, this isn't it. No discredit to you; this is great work, but for me, personally: The world does not need more diagram editors. Diagrams are fundamentally not the right tool for the problem I have. The problem I have is that I have a technical system, for example, a network diagram, or an architecture diagram of a system or set of systems; and I need the da…

Can you give examples of the multiple views of the same data? Maybe you can use a past project where you needed this.
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