Dia: A Strong Open Source Answer to Microsoft's Visio

by Sam Dean - Jun. 13, 2008Comments (29)

I was just reading through an interesting post from Mike Kavis, in which he describes his efforts to use open source software as a way to avoid Microsoft's products altogether. His post is a follow-up to another one he wrote about his, er, social experiment. Kavis became Microsoft-free by using products such as Thunderbird for e-mail, OpenOffice for productivity apps, and Firefox for browsing. After chucking Microsoft Office, though, Kavis laments that "there is no answer for Visio." I beg to differ. There is actually a truly fantastic free, open source alternative to Microsoft's visualization and diagramming tool: Dia. Take a look at it here.

Dia is very similar to Microsoft's Visio application, and was developed as part of the GNOME project's office suite. For anyone going entirely open source, without any Microsoft products, it's not a bad idea to use GNOME (which comes with a slew of applications) and Dia.

Take a look at the screenshot found at this link for the kinds of useful diagrams and flowcharts you can do in Dia. You can associate multiple diagrams with each other and work on them in tandem.

Also, at left is part of Dia's pallette of drawing tools, which, as you can see, looks and feels very Windows-like. In fact, the whole program ties in with Windows conventions very closely so people coming to it with Windows application backgrounds will find Dia intuitive.

 

 

Like Visio, Dia can export diagrams to many popular file formats, including:

  • EPS (Encapsulated PostScript),
  • SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
  • DXF (Autocad's Drawing Interchange format)
  • CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile)
  • WMF (Windows Meta File)
  • PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
  • JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
  • VDX (Microsoft's XML for Visio Drawing)

As you can see from the inclusion of WMF and VDX support above, Dia can be used to work with Visio, although it is possible to run into some compatibility problems. In general, if you collaborate with someone who happens to use Visio, there shouldn't be many roadblocks to sharing. (Visio has a proprietary file format, but it exports to several formats that Dia reads.)

One other nice feature Dia has is that it allows you to print extremely large diagrams in parts on multiple sheets of paper, which can then be combined for a big view of, say, a really complex flowchart. Now, Mike Kavis can go completely Microsoft free, if he so chooses.


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29 Comments
 

There are open source tools that can do what Vision do. Open Office has the Draw product. The problem is that at work I need to create the Visio vsd files in order create documents that other people will read and I need to be able to read .vsd files. I have found nothing other then Visio that can do this.

1 Votes

I'm sorry, but I think the biggest hurdle that prevents adoption of software like this over MS products is the interface experience.

I am sure that Dia is a very powerful piece of software with perhaps features that squash Visio in many places, but it is plain FUGLY, looking like a circa Win3.1 app.

A fancier interface may slow things down somewhat, and will result in a bloated install, but if you put Dia and Visio up side by side and showed it to a group of people, there is no doubting which one they will choose.

1 Votes

Interface looks so 1996.

0 Votes

Indeed, I totally agree with that. The major problem of many open-source applications today is no longer their lack of functionality, but their inconsistent and chaotic user interface. This is as true for Dia as it is for GIMP. Luckily, for most application niches, there are already alternatives ready. GIMP can be (at least on windows) substituted by Paint.NET, instead of Dia one may use XFig (which looks like a 1982 GEM application, granted, but in fact has a very powerful and intuitive interface once you get used to it). For certain tasks, Inkscape (one of my favorites in my everyday work) might also be an alternative.

Also do not underestimate non-free, but low cost software. At work I rely on Concept Draw 7 instead of Visio which offers almost the same functionality, but comes at a much lower price and with a support for standards like UML2 which is way better than the one found in Visio.

1 Votes

I'm sorry - anybody that has worked intensely with Visio will agree that Dia is nowhere near Visio.

Look even at this sentence from Dia's project website: "Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use."

Dia is fugly, doesn't support Visio file formats etc.

This is really sad because we have been looking at open source diagramming software to replace Visio in our company because Visio is quite expensive if you have to license it for everybody. But we just couldn't find a replacement.

People either suggest Dia - which just wouldn't cut the mustard or some vector drawing program.

I think there is space for a descent diagramming open source project. Preferable with lots of lgpl libraries so other non-diagramming programs can have diagramming capabilities added to them,

1 Votes

I used it some time ago.Aside from its UI, it is very slow.Compare it with visio, you can reach the same point.

0 Votes

Beats the heck out of paying for Visio - unless ofcourse you're using a "cracked" version :)

1 Votes

Persnally I use Dia for most of my project work, it has its quirks but I find it more useful than Visio.

I code in a predominantly MS environment (VS.NET and SQL server) btw.

1 Votes

I just love the Dia for creating humungous diagrams even with a small printer ! http://www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com/

0 Votes

Another really useful app to use in flow charts is the FreeMind app. Check it out: http://ostatic.com/21361-software-opensource/freemind

It is much more light weight than Visio especially for brainstorms and idea mapping.

0 Votes

I evaluated Dia, along with other "cheap" alternatives. Dia had issues withcreating nested loops; text boxes grew when you added text, but didn't shrink when you deleted text; dragging corner of text box to resize didn't maintain aspect ratio; snap to grid didn't align connection points; adding connectors was awkward.

0 Votes

Come on people...enough with the whole fugly thing. The screenshot above does not actually represent what it really looks like. That just happens to be an ugly system theme. This is what it looks like with my current theme >> http://s3.supload.com/files/default/Desktopper.png.

It's not the greatest but still better than the screenshot above.

0 Votes

Sorry, this link should work. I didn't know that free image host was so sensitive.

http://s3.supload.com/files/default/Desktopper.png

0 Votes

Alright, I'm sorry people, apparently that image host sucks because it keeps giving a hotlink message even though I used the "shareable" url. Let's try this one more time else I give up...can a site admin please delete my first two messages?

http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs128&d=08251&f=desktopper818.png

0 Votes

What do yo mean the GUI is ugly? You are probably looking at the Unix GUI. Take a look at the Windows GUI.

Microsoft is beginning to feel the pinch from Open Source software. That is why they are scrambling to reorganize their business model. They are gearing up to becoming more of a software services company than a software development company.

0 Votes

Best one I have used is Umbrello. But then I don't recall ever using Visio.

And to those complaining Dia doesn't support Visio files: show the format specifications to the Dia developers and they will add it. "Visio is the only good one because it supports Visio format"? well Duh. That's what vendor lock-in is about and you fell on it.

0 Votes

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0 Votes

I currently use Dia under Linux in my work, but I have to say that the interface is unfriendly in many cases, beside the oldish style (that's not a problem at all).

The text management is painful, while the object selection is counter-intuitive, sometimes. Managing groups properties is impossible, so if results can be comparable, the efforts to produce them are *way* bigger than configuring Wine to use Visio.

At least with the current version.

0 Votes

>> show the format specifications to the Dia developers and they will add it.


This is not true.

VSD format was reverse engineered already, suitable part of the result was re-used by Apache POI.

Nor Dia, nor OO.org, nor Kivio were interested to add it.

They all know that they suck even with support of VSD.


0 Votes

I'm sorry, but Dia IS NOT EVEN CLOSE to a substitute for Visio. Unless I am missing something, it is both ugly and feature poor, although free.


0 Votes

Well i think it's good as have always received positive feedback on it and i think everyone has a different requirement so the best one is the one that suits you.


0 Votes

Does Dia support the capability of importing data base designs from popular RDMS's?


Does anyone know of an open source and/or free app that will do this?


0 Votes

oops...

RDBMS's


0 Votes

I just downloaded it and its running on my vista... the interface isn't bad at all-- don't know what all the fuss is about.


0 Votes

actually, take that back..i can't put text directly into objects. if you're used to visio this will be too frustrating. oh well. it's pretty though!


0 Votes

Dia is the most reliable open source software

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0 Votes

Dia is poor mans tool. Shapes do not accept text. Connectors can't have text. If you group connector with label it looses its connecting abilities.

... and that is not all its limits. It simply sux.


I have worked with Visio for several years before, now we use Dia for 3 years in our office. Comparing those two - Dia is still far far away and sux. Sometimes I just get my mac and jump on OmniGrafle demo for simple diagrams, it saves time.


For all blagh blagh.. abled. We are not windows guys, we are not apple fans. In our office we use OpenSuse linux as desktop machines, code web, and we all here are shell friendly :). But Dia still sux. It takes too much time thinking about how to draw, than thinking what to draw.


It's pitty, as under linux there is no other good choise for diagraming. And I'm not talking about any special diagrams - they all are partially implemented - I gues, that is what makes them special :) Dia sux here too.


Sorry dia, but you suck.


0 Votes

evrything works up in own sweet ime you just need to have patience then youcan surely wait and watch.


0 Votes

Oh no it Isn't................being able to rotate symbols or images is a fundamental requirement of any drawing package, I am afraid until Dia can do this it is quite DIRE


0 Votes
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