Filed under: Software
Omnigraffle 4 released
If there's one thing I love more than live itself it is flowcharts. Our Windows using friends have Visio, a rather plain Jane kind of software produced by Microsoft itself. Sure, it can make you a flowchart but it isn't the kind of program you want to use.Luckily for us Mac users we have Omnigraffle from the Omnigroup. Now in its fourth version this stunner of a program creates flowcharts that you wouldn't mind bringing home to mother. That's not all, you can create all sorts of diagrams and outlines in the new UI and styles in version 4.
Omnigraffle is available in two versions Omnigraffle and Omnigraffle Professional, both are available now.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
USTommyMC said 2:40PM on 9-20-2005
Honestly Visio is the best diagram program out there. It didn't originate from Microsoft (like anything is). In my line of work Visio is a critical program for drawing military communications networks and I have wished and prayed and emailed Microsoft's MBU to port the program over to OS X. Omnigraffle is an awesome program but it doesn't begin to compare to Visio. I use Omnigraffle only because its the closest thing we have to Visio for the Mac but that isn't saying much. Visio is one of those few things that the Dark Side will always have over us. Too bad.
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Zach said 7:08PM on 9-20-2005
Maybe for your line of work, Tommy, but I love OmniGraffle for E/R relational database modelling. Add to that the ability to automatically convert OmniOutliner outlines into a flow diagram, and you see where the real power in Omni lies.
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jbbbbb said 1:18PM on 9-21-2005
Having used both, I think OmniGraffle is far superior to Visio. I highly recommend version 4 for any Mac user who needs to make flowcharts.
Unfortunately, Visio is the business standard and as far as I can tell, Omnigraffle (only the Pro version) can only open Visio XML docs. M$ has been screwing Mac users for years by not releasing a Mac version.
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nezromatron said 2:12PM on 12-24-2005
Zach,
How complex are the databases that you are modeling with this thing? I've been trying to find a strong enough app that would compare to ER/Win or ER/Studio on the windows platform but nothing. I'd like it to do reverse engineering of the databases as well as DDL generation.
For simple diagrams I'm sure graffle will work, but I don't see the feature set there that would make it a viable enterprise level app.
Which I think is lacking on the OS X platform in general. Good for 'creative' people, but for people that need to do some heavy lifting, nothing.
Can't wait for the intel chips...
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