[HN Gopher] ASCIIFlow Diagram Tool ___________________________________________________________________ ASCIIFlow Diagram Tool Author : bshanks Score : 133 points Date : 2021-06-17 04:58 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (asciiflow.com) (TXT) w3m dump (asciiflow.com) | Miiko wrote: | Nice tool, but new version is technically not an "ASCII flow" | anymore, as it now uses Unicode Box Drawing characters (in | 0x2500+ block), unlike previous version that used ASCII for lines | and boxes. | bshanks wrote: | When you export the drawing (click the button in the upper left | then click the download icon to the right of File), there is an | option to us "ASCII Basic". | uDontKnowMe wrote: | I appreciate the ability to select and move already drawn | components, I believe this was missing in the original version | which kept me from using it. Thanks team! | cratermoon wrote: | The problem with visual diagramming tools as far back as Visio, | is how much of a time suck they are even for simple diagrams. If | you're one of those folks who manages to stick with one long | enough to create a stable of templates for common diagrams, you | can become somewhat more efficient, but it's always going to be | fiddly. | | I've embraced the diagrams-as-code world, with graphviz, | plantuml, Structurizr DSL, AsciiDoctor Diagram, Mermaid, and | WebSequenceDiagrams all having a place. It's even possible to | generate SVG using ruby or any language with a decent SVG | library. | | Yes, I had to give up making my diagrams "just so", but the time | I've saved not dragging around elements, trying to connect lines | and arrows makes it worth it. Being able to commit them to source | control as text rather than binary files that don't diff is a | bonus | atombender wrote: | I've used most of these, and for the times when aesthetics | don't matter, they're fine, though I find that automated | layouts never really work well, and become too messy to make | practical diagrams for most purposes. (Maybe this an area where | machine learning could improve the algorithms.) | | A new tool that has impressed me, though, is FigJam [1], which | is a new type of document in Figma that's currently in beta. | It's basically Visio, but with a fantastically intuitive UI and | beautiful rendering style; super easy to draw boxes and lines | and so on. Best of all, it's got real-time, web-based | collaboration built in, and it's as solid as Figma (which is | also fantastic). | | [1] https://www.figma.com/figjam/ | kenniskrag wrote: | on plantuml you can specify if the class should be placed, | left, right, top, bottom. That helped me a lot. | cratermoon wrote: | If you're really into shaving yaks, all the tools I mentioned | allow for fine-grained modification of the aesthetics and | layout. | | Two questions about FigJam then: | | 1. What format does it store the saved files? Is it plain | text, does it compress well, can it be diff'd? | | 2. Can I store the saved files locally and put them in the | version control/CRM system of my choice, or are they all | stored on Figma's servers? | atombender wrote: | Fine-grained, sure, but if I have to tell the tool how to | do things, I might as well just fire up Illustrator. What I | love about FigJam is that everything looks great with zero | effort. | | It doesn't do auto-layout, which is fine, because nobody | does that well anyway -- ultimately, layout tends to be a | "semantic" issue that tools can't automate. | | You can import/export diagrams as files, but they're in a | proprietary binary format. You can, however, export as SVG. | And Figma does support versioning. | yumraj wrote: | Exactly. My only issue is that if I have a high level diagram | and create sub diagrams, then the sub diagrams look very | different due to their own layout. But the time save is huge. | | This is another reason I have settled on Markdown, R Markdown | driven documentation and even presentation. The 2 dimensional | presentation created via Markdown and Revealjs is much faster | and looks great and best of all it forces you to limit how much | content to write in a slide and I don't have to worry about | layout. | asix66 wrote: | Agreed! In my world of Asic design, I use Wavedrom[1] and | Latex/LyX with tikz-timing[2] to make drawing timing diagrams | less painful and more predictable and good looking to. Bonus, | as you mentioned, they are source based text, and so can be | committed in the repo. | | [1] https://wavedrom.com/ | | [2] http://bakoma-tex.com/doc/latex/tikz-timing/tikz-timing.pdf | ape4 wrote: | I'd like grahviz (dot language) ascii output. | | Seems some hope for that | https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3211801/graphviz-and-asc... | gregsadetsky wrote: | The answer at the very bottom does include a browser-based link | to do this: https://dot-to-ascii.ggerganov.com/ | | Seems to work well..! | howmayiannoyyou wrote: | Prior version was better. So much so that I had to stop using the | current version. That said, for what they charge I shouldn't | complain and appreciate their help over the years. | constantinum wrote: | Shall i recommend(heartily) Monodraw(mac only) for ASCII | diagrams. I use it all the time for code comments, documentation, | spec docs and even some times quick and dirty UX mockups | https://monodraw.helftone.com/ | peterhil wrote: | Is there a bug when one line segment is between two letters? This | can also happen if you draw two lines with one row between them | and then a third line in between them. | | I get that + is a single point, and the logic would be more | complicated if it were * or *. | | However, I think in these cases the line segments should consist | of - and |. --- x+x +-- | | +x+ x + | peterhil wrote: | However, this is an amazing ascii drawing tool! | dankle wrote: | It's not very mobile friendly... | Jenk wrote: | Double tap and drag. As in tap-and-release, then tap-and-hold. | rychco wrote: | This is quite nice. I can see myself using this to communicate a | concept in internal documentation or even as inline comments. | olodus wrote: | Yeah I've used it to do some inline comments a few times and am | really happy with how it turned out. Even though it still is a | bit clunky I like how you can import back your diagram if you | needed to change something small. | | I would probably use something else when modelling a solution | but sometimes it really is best to keep the documentation as | close as possible to the source. | _joel wrote: | Not feeling this new version, much preferred the original one | chx wrote: | There's a return to old version link | https://asciiflow.com/legacy/ | jiveturkey wrote: | huh. I only know the new one. I like it fine. Now I have to see | what I'm missing! | canada_dry wrote: | It could be useful for quickly designing an IoT lcd display | layout... but, maybe I'm missing a config option, why doesn't it | display the x,y size of the object you're drawing/modifying (i.e. | as a tooltip or a properties box)?? Seems like such a basic | feature. | enriquetejeda wrote: | Nice tool, is easily to understand and very intuitive ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-19 23:00 UTC)