Advice for diagramming app?

Hi Creative People,
I’m looking for an app that lets me label and move figures around a screen and place them in relationship to something I might draw such as a couch or doorway. Non-digitally, this would be done with magnets on a magnetic whiteboard. Even useful search terms would be helpful! Thanks!

Omnigraffle is the obvious solution to me, unless I’ve misunderstood your requirements.

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From your description, I wouldn’t call that diagramming, for which I always think of flowcharts, and Omnigraffle is the great for that. It sounds like you want a vector drawing app. I’ve found Omnigraffle a PITA for anything beyond flowcharts and other block diagrams, but it might be just me. I prefer EazyDraw, and have used it for over a decade. Another well thought of choice is Affinity Designer. If I were made of money, I just get Adobe Illustrator.

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ZoomNotes for Mac and iOS is my favorite app for this sort of thing.

Katie

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Before you spend any money, try Keynote. It’s remarkably capable for many tasks like this.

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Do tell! How do you use it?

FYI…

All on iOS (for pencil usage):

Concepts.app is a powerful (infinite canvas) candidate. The folks at SweetSetup seem to like it a lot. I have just started to try it out, and it does seem very capable yet easy to use. For instance, Concepts imports photographs easily making it trivial to sketch off an existing photo or other item. Concepts also has infinite canvas… which makes it great for free-form notes as well.

Another one is Vectornator. I don’t know how good it is, but they seem very aggressive in pushing their features. Could be a good candidate.

Assembly is another candidate. More businessy perhaps, and I think it comes with loads of canned artwork.

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I think I’m somehow not conveying what I need here. Imagine a stage with actors on it, and some objects like chairs and tables and stairs, and I want to see what it’s like if an actor stands with others or runs across the stage to join someone who has fallen. I don’t want to animate it or display it for anybody else; it’s for me to move things around so I can anticipate actions and obstacles. Another image might be pieces on a game board except that I don’t want them to be restricted to advance by any rules. I suppose I could simply plunk down a number of circles in a drawing app…

I’ll check this out!

Insert pictures, shapes, text, lines, etc.

Ah ok. Thanks! It’s a little clunky, but could work in a pinch. I think it might be better just to use magnets and pieces of paper though! Sometimes apps just aren’t the answer!

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Yes, you need a drawing app.

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If you are into storytelling at the same time you are trying to illustrate relative movement, then I would search for a STORYBOARD app.

Keynote can work wonders here and it’s really simple to use. Each page could be a “frame” or a point in the story, and you can move from frame to the next frame with the intended movements – and you can put in foot notes, speaker notes, or annotations on the page as it sits.

If you want a good TECHNCIAL Drawing app – then yes, Omnigraffle is the best there is that I’ve found.

If you start using an IPAD instead of a Mac, and you are more of a “sketcher” kind of person – look into PROCREATE … fantastic app and can be used to get to where you may want to go …

Many options, depends on your style and needs.

Mike

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We discussed this a year ago here. For the output and look alone I still recommend Simple Diagrams, which is expensive ($49). Lots of free to cheap options, ya’ shoulda’ listed a budget.

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Analog is far from dead.
JK Rowling’s plot development for Harry Potter.
image

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You can also use Magic Move to do simple animations. I used it to make an animation about the behavioral effects of Cordyceps unilateralis infection on ants.

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The owner/developer of SimpleDiagrams, Daniel McQuillen, recently wrote to license holders

[In] 2019 I’ve arrived at a kind of crossroads. I’m not sure what to do with SimpleD next…or even whether anyone wants new versions and features anymore. Should I stay cross-platform? Go Mac only? PC only? Go mobile? Go web? Go home and try something new? … My time could be up. SimpleD could be largely irrelevant now, or soon.

I like and use SimpleDiagrams, but until Daniel sorts out what he wants to do with the software I would wait. I quickly wrote Daniel and urged him to keep the product alive at least on the Mac.

Katie

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On my iPad (as this thread it tagged with “iPad”) I would probably try the apps Concepts and/or Grafio 3 in that order. Both apps are quite competent and quick to work in when it comes to placing objects on a “scene”. Both apps also has various types of “stencils” (objects) that you can purchase, or you can create your own. You can also connect them and label them freely.

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Explain Everything may be a solution for you. A quick look in the App Store also has an app called Explain Edu. It’s been some time since I’ve used it and it’s been upgraded. These two choices look very similar.