#Omnigraffle pro opening up visio document problem mac#

I'm certainly not the only one that moved TO OmniGraffle as a Mac user wanting to move AWAY from Visio. Having the positioning of the nodes as automatic and responsive tot he adjustments of the swim lanes is important, but so is the inverse in perhaps having the option to have the swim lanes adjust to fit around the nodes inside.Īs it stands, we're left using alternative tools, or else being drawn back to Visio. This might be something niche to business analysts, but it's an important and popular tool. Difficulty in positioning the objects/actors/nodes in the lanes, requiring back-and-forth between vertical and horizontal positions

#Omnigraffle pro opening up visio document problem manual#

No way I could see to control the dimensions of all of the lanes (resulting in manual click-drag-adjust) Inserting rows and columns occurs at the end of the existing ones, with no 'Insert Above' or 'Insert Below' options as we come to expect from similar functions in spreadsheets

Some control over the default variables of the Swim Lane template Right-click contextual 'Add a Column' and 'Add a Row' customisation I'd like to add my support for getting them on the roadmap, and I would point towards the freeware (sadly not open source) yED as an example of an 'almost there' implementation. Swimlanes are an essential part of diagramming and I'm glad to hear that they are at least being triaged in some manner. But I would draw the source diagrams completely, first.

xor resize the total size of the source objects as a group, to fit into the target objectįor me, it is no big deal to review the entire doc and do a bit of both, to maintain the overall context and relative object sizes.

either resize the target object to contain the unchanged total size of the source objects.

The way I would describe it is, we need an attribute on a target object or group, that let's us 'pour' any number of objects or a group of objects or text into the target object, and: And that is if someone can actually define the requirement, which is not clear yet. There are lots of other features that I would prefer Omni addresses before they address the requirements identified here. It is a problem in the way you are working, not in the tool. Sure, if you keep resizing the lanes all the time, and it is a pain, then evidently you have not drawn each original integral diagram (flowchart, process flow, etc) correctly or completely you need to do that first, before you can use such in a composite diagram (such as 'swimlane'). There are various things to consider, such as whether the resulting text is comparable to the other text on the page the error of changing the size of symbols etc, so really, I would want to do that myself anyway, and avoid having it done automatically for me. The lanes would be a layer beneath the objects in the lanes. Personally, I cannot see the 'problem': either re-sizing the 'lanes' to fit the new set of objects, or resizing the group-of-objects to fit into the 'lane', is really really easy in OG. The only feature that is 'missing' is OG (that allegedly exists in Visio), is the automatic re-sizing of the 'lanes'. Hell, you can make one of the lanes a timeline for budget or project approvals (and then we are approaching a Project Plan).

And those specific types of diagrams already have perfectly good tools. The diagram is a composite of other formal diagrams, which have specific types, laid over 'lanes'. The point I am making is that the 'swimlane' diagram is not a type of diagram, for which there needs to be, or can be, a native implementation. Now what you put in the lanes after that is pretty much up to you and the expected audience: you can keep it technical and standards-oriented or you can make it quite friendly and cute. 'Swimlanes' are not new by any means, they are merely a horinzontal or vertical categorisation (in columns or lanes) of responsibilities (Actors, Roles). Cartoons are cute, but for professionals who want to draw Roles or Actors, a couple of good standards already exist, and those would simply be used in the 'storyboard' or 'scenario' 'lane'. For reasonably modern ones, you will need to use several different Stencils, and Insert a reasonable number of graphics or images. OG is by far the easiest tool to use for 'swimlane' diagrams.