Diagramming Software?

JohnnFour · Jul 14, 2007

I need to create some DB diagrams, flow charts, and relationship diagrams. I use Visio at work, but alas don't have it at home. Anyone know of good freeware or shareware diagramming software for XP?

azhrei_fje · Jul 16, 2007

Nope.

If you were using Linux, I could recommend Umbrello or Dia or even Inkscape. But I have no idea if those have been ported to Windows. (Some of the Qt-based programs will be portable simply because the Qt library has been ported, so maybe in the future...)

Thanee · Jul 16, 2007

A Google search using 'visio like free' as keywords turns up quite a few hits.

Bye
Thanee

Merkuri · Jul 16, 2007

azhrei_fje said:
If you were using Linux, I could recommend Umbrello or Dia or even Inkscape. But I have no idea if those have been ported to Windows.

I don't know about the rest, but Dia has been ported to Windows. I like it.

Arnix · Jul 16, 2007

I have done the same research. There is nothing that really does what Visio does for free.

You can download a "trial" 30 or 60 day copy of Visio from M$ directly.

Inkscape is a vector program (where you get to create all of your own shapes and such before you begin you diagram) and Dia seems to get worse with every release. Both of these are available for Windows.

Mac and Linux are supposed to have very nice alternatives, but none of the better ones are ported to Windows.

[edit]
Oh, it you are doing DB diagrams, you can download DB Designer 4 or MySQL Workbench. Either one of those will do a passable job at an ERD.

You can also download Toad for you specified DB and use its data modeler and have it reverse engineer the table structures.

[/edit]

drothgery · Jul 16, 2007

Dude, just buy a copy of Visio. Is there something seriously wrong with paying for commercial software that you actually use a lot?

Arnix · Jul 16, 2007

It's what I ended up doing.

XCorvis · Jul 17, 2007

drothgery said:
Dude, just buy a copy of Visio. Is there something seriously wrong with paying for commercial software that you actually use a lot?

Well, a non-upgrade version of Visio Standard 2007 costs about $250, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask around for free alternatives first.

That said, you can probably pick up Visio 2003 for a lot cheaper, like $100. Make sure you find one with a full license, not just visio "media" (ie the CD without the serial number).

Redrobes · Jul 17, 2007

Sheesh ! If your willing to pay a few dollars then you can use ViewingDale as an online RPG VT, full mapper and diagram editor. I do all my software diagrams on it and have a whole collection of boxes busses, arrows, lines and circles etc.

If you want, as a bit of goodwill, I could make these shapes into free demo type icons and you could use the free trial download from the web page. You can save the diagrams, zoom into them etc but the demo download does not allow the high res screen saves so you would have to do a screen capture with the print screen button to get the image.