That's a backwards mentality. I already use Graphviz, why would I switch? You need to be asking yourself (and convincing everyone else) what Gleek offers that Graphviz does not offer.
Also, in the USA, "gleeking" is a very specific kind of spitting, by projecting saliva from under the tongue. Not what I want to think about when making diagrams.
i understand your point.
i was just asking what do you appreciate on the other tool - as i expected you know that tool better than gleek.io diagram maker. we will certainly look closer on graphviz.
I recently had to create a handful of class diagrams. To document existing stuff, vs as a design tool. Just the level of detail needed to make the point.
It's been ages since I've done UML stuff. Surely things are better now?
I tried a handful of tools. PlantUML, whatever comes with IntelliJ Ultimate, something that had recently been front page on HN (edit: dotuml.com), mermaid, nomnoml, an app I found on the Apple Mac store. I even tried just a generic diagramming tool.
So frustrating. Overlapping edges and arrowheads. Couldn't control placement or order. Classes with just names (no fields or methods) still showing those extra lines (vs just a name with a box). Couldn't discern abstract (italics) from concrete (bold) classes.
I gave up.
I was tempted to just hand draw the diagrams. Alas, my lettering is turrible.
I finally went back to wrestling with graphviz's DOT.
It's not great. But at least the edges don't overlap.
I don't know, I don't tend to use graphs for documentation or communication. I just wanted to highlight the tool that is probably your main competitor given the parent was talking about open source comparisons. Presumably you have a pitch for why gleek is superior to graphviz or other alternatives to justify the pricing?
FWIW I do like the real time preview; manipulating symbols in the dark is the worst thing about textual languages.
In emacs, M-x global-auto-revert-mode. in a shell:
while inotifywait -e modify -r .; do sleep 0.5; make; done
load up the .dot file and the output .png file side by side in an emacs frame. Every time you save the .dot file, the inotifywait loop rebuilds the output .png, writes it to disk, and then emacs notices that the file on disk is newer than its buffer so it "reverts" (reloads) it.
There's even a bit more you can do, with flymake-mode. With flymake-mode, the buffer you're working on gets saved to a separate filename every time you stop editing it for a few ms. If your makefile is set up right, it will build an output file from the temporary flymake file, so you can have that resulting "temporary" artifact open as the other emacs buffer and get automatic refreshing every time you stop typing.
This workflow works for nearly anything you can edit in emacs, as long as you can write a makefile. I wrote everything in grad school this way.
I think VS Code has something even nicer preview (no manual setup or dinking around in a shell) for some plugins, but I don't know if it's general like this setup is.
Edit: Though, this setup has the perennial problem of anything involving emacs: it's completely single-player. I can't easily collaborate with anybody while using this workflow. I also can't really touch any part of it while I'm on my phone. SaaS web/mobile apps can do those things, so they might be more applicable depending on the situation.
Also, in the USA, "gleeking" is a very specific kind of spitting, by projecting saliva from under the tongue. Not what I want to think about when making diagrams.