Process flow design

[SpikeTheLobster]

I'm right in the middle of having a site developed in Drupal and I've been doing all my process diagrams in Excel for the moment. Hey, they look pretty good, so there!

 

Some of them, however, have become... a touch unwieldy, shall we say. Here's a bit of a zoomed-out screenie of one of the longer ones, before I made it even more complicated: clickety-click.

 

So I wondered... do any of you folks know of a really simple app that'll do this? I DON'T want something like FreeMind or other complicated, annoying, click-seven-times-to-do-anything apps (that's why I drew everything in Excel: it's simple) but if there's a drag-and-drop utility that'll do it, it might save me some hassle.

 

Thanks guys...!

[bloggeroo]

What kind of diagrams are you making? UML diagrams? May I recommend yEd from yworks.com?

 

yEd is a Java-based application which you can install to run in your computer or run it online. I'm planning to standardize my design and development process around this tool.

[bryce12]

This may sound crazy but I have used MS Word and Excel several times to create flowcharts. This may not be the best option especially if you are working on a huge project but for smaller ones, it works like charm.

[SpikeTheLobster]

I'd been doing mine in Excel, Bryce - like you, I found it easy, clear and workable. I just wondered if there was a simple alternative for some of the larger, more complex ones (since it can be a total cow if you miss a single step and have to move everything around).

 

I'll take a look at yED, thanks Bloggeroo - it looks like the sort of thing I want. I'm not really doing flowcharts or UML or anything specific: more a mix of several formats that just shows the essentials so that Mr. Developer has some idea of what I'm talking about!

[__Darknite]

The best method is GraphViz, it has its own language called "Dot Language".

 

I've used this extensively, its very powerful. You could even automate things, example: if you have a database you can write a script to parse the schema and spit out a Dot Script.

[SpikeTheLobster]

The best method is GraphViz, it has its own language called "Dot Language".

 

I've used this extensively, its very powerful. You could even automate things, example: if you have a database you can write a script to parse the schema and spit out a Dot Script.

 

Thanks, but I specifically don't want something powerful, with its own scripting language and everything. I want something I can throw diagrams together in, without too much effort and prep - yED seems the best match for what I need. The developer doesn't need minutiae (apparently I'm waaaaaay ahead of 99% of his clients, even with the ones I've done in Excel) so I don't need to worry about producing very detailed, complex things - just the basics.

 

Nice to know there's a full-on app around, though. I'll keep a note of that in case I ever need it.

[__Darknite]

The other option is DIA, its free and open source. Its very similar to microsoft visio.