[specialdragon]

http://plantuml.com

I've been doing a lot of flow diagrams and PlantUML has been invaluable. I specifically like it because sharing the flow means sharing some text, which itself is vaguely human-readable. There's an online renderer (bottom of the page in the above link), which means simple diagrams are also quick to create and view. It's got a few different modes that it understands but I'd definitely add it to the list when you need simple vector graphics.

[janaagaard]

https://www.planttext.com/

Has an online split screen view with your text on one side, and the diagram in the other. It's quite crude - no auto refresh, for example - but it works.

[coding123]

The best thing about plant is that you don't draw things out. you describe them. I actually feel like this is the way we SHOULD do diagrams so that we have flexibility to re-do them. I wish that Markdown would include plantUML natively.

[jph]

Demo of PlantUML text and diagrams: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/demo_plantuml

[alangibson]

I love PlantUML so much that I made my own Confluence plugin Called PowerPlantUML: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219122/powerplantuml...

[regnull]

PlantUML looks great, all the features I need, but their page is infested with fake ads, including fake download buttons of 5 different kinds. They also link to download page on SourceForge (hmmm, it's still alive) with even worse ads. Maybe it just me, but I immediately lost any desire to try it.

[magic-chicken]

Also, text diagrams allows the use of source control and versioning, which is nice.

[samatman]

As well as accessibility for the vision-impaired, I favor GraphViz and PlantUML for all these reasons

[cheez]

I second, third and fourth this. Anytime I'm not sure about a design, I sketch it out in plantuml and play around with it. Every project of mine has at least one or two plantuml diagrams checked into it.

[rvdmei]

I can highly recommend the PlantUML plugin for Visual Studio Code [1]. I mainly use this for sequence diagrams and component diagrams. The plugin makes editing and previewing the diagrams awesome. Also checkout PlantUML integration for GitLab [2]. We recently deployed this at work, so not many miles yet, but looks pretty awesome. Main feature is to render embedded PlantUML markup in text files (markdown).

[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jebbs.pl... [2] https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/administration/integration/plantu...

[TeMPOraL]

I too use PlantUML a lot.

My only complaint is that you can't manipulate layout directly. You can do some hacks like invisible directional arrows, but ultimately any change you make risks turning your beautiful diagram into complete spaghetti.

I wish there was a tool combining plaintext description with explicit layouting.

[grogenaut]

Use plantuml a ton. Their google docs integration is quirky (it is hard to tell if you are going to edit the text in the doc or the diagram) but it's fast and anyone can edit it easily; I love it.

I use a combination of plant for sequence flows and lucid for arch diagrams.

[eloycoto]

I'm 100 agree! Plantuml is great, not as pretty as other tools but build diagrams for internal doc is awesome!like conflucence, wiki, sphinx, etc.. I'm in love with!