[HN Gopher] ASCIIFlow Diagram Tool
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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
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