quick, effective diagrams with Gliffy

May 29, 2006

Gliffy is a great new tool for creating diagrams. It recently opened up it’s doors to a public beta. I’ve been using it for a while. It’s awesome to be able to create a quick network diagram, and then publish it to get a easily accessible jpeg image. I’ve never loved Visio, and now I don’t need it anymore! Working on a team with that uses both Mac and Windows there just hasn’t been a good way to create a diagram that can be easily edited by anyone on the team before Gliffy.

They’ve got some other neat features that make it feel like a mature product that can easily fit into your workflow:
– collaborative tools
– version control
– SVG export

Also, in addition to the basic shapes that I’ve been using during the private beta, they just introduced:
– Flowchart
– UI wireframes
– Floor plan
– Network shapes (yay!)

Gliffy is built using OpenLaszlo by Chris Kohlhardt and Clint Dickson. The interface is snappy and easy to learn. It includes the kind of important user interface details you’ve come to expect from a desktop app: the side palettes can be quickly tucked away, allowing more room for your drawing; when the browser resizes, the document and tools resize fluidly; and you’ll find familiar menus and toolbars. You’ll forget you are using a web browser!

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