Please advise for a "Visio-like" program

[rjalex]

Dear friends,
I need to draw a scheme of a computer room and need to show the electrical, wifi, ethernet cabled, USB, FW connections each one has.

I need to draw a box for each one and then use a line to connect each box with a line of a different color for each type of connection and ideally the program should then move boxes around to minimize the jumble !!!

I tried Omnigraffle at a friends house but could not make much use of it (maybe because I don't know how to use it) including not being able to draw lines in different colours.

Thank you very much

 

[fhall1]

From what I've seen - Omnigraffle is the most Visio-like Mac program - that said, I still do my diagrams in Visio on a Parallels virtual Windows machine install.

 

[skaertus]

Dear friends,
I need to draw a scheme of a computer room and need to show the electrical, wifi, ethernet cabled, USB, FW connections each one has.

I need to draw a box for each one and then use a line to connect each box with a line of a different color for each type of connection and ideally the program should then move boxes around to minimize the jumble !!!

I tried Omnigraffle at a friends house but could not make much use of it (maybe because I don't know how to use it) including not being able to draw lines in different colours.

Thank you very much

I think OmniGraffle is the best one available for Mac. There is an iPad version as well (I think the touch-screen helps with this kind of work). Also, take a look here for other alternatives: http://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-visio/

 

[rjalex]

Thanks ... can you guide me to drawing lines with Omnigraffle in the colours I choose please ?

 

[blueruck]

Yed is decent and free

 

[BornAgainMac]

Yes, OmniGraffle you can have different colors for the lines. Each object has it's own attributes that you can change. You can change one or change all that you select.

This website has a 2 hour class on OmniGraffle 6 so you can check it out.

OmniGraffle 6 Essential Training

 

[maflynn]

Omnigraffle is probably your best bet as mentioned. I used it and I can import/export from Omnigraffle to/from Visio.

 

[onekerato]

ideally the program should then move boxes around to minimize the jumble !!!

This feature - being able to automatically rearrange your diagram for neatness - is not available in most diagramming apps. Omnigraffle has it, and it's powered by the free Graphviz engine (http://www.graphviz.org/Home.php). Unfortunately, Graphviz itself is a command-line app and designed for nerds

Googling around, just discovered the free "yEd Graph Editor" app, which also has auto layout and is cross-platform - I've not tried it though (http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html)