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by Veuxdo 684 days ago
Congrats on the launch. Looks very clean.

I think the core concept is flawed, though. "Animated diagrams" are great for generating engagement on social media, but in practice an animated line doesn't tell you anything an arrow wouldn't. They just become a distraction. Plus, they make it harder to read a label on the line (and "real" diagrams should have those).
3 comments
j0d1 683 days ago
Someone submitted an issue on Github to add labels on links (i.e. lines) and I think it's a great idea for a v1. In my mind, the animations won't get in the way of reading the labels, but implementation will tell! I will also probably implement them like I implemented titles on systems, which is to avoid routing links over them.

> "Animated diagrams" are great for generating engagement on social media, but in practice an animated line doesn't tell you anything an arrow wouldn't.

Instead of showing a little green box moving from system A to system B, I could have shown static arrows alongside the link between system A to system B, or something similar.

I chose the moving green box as it represents the data flowing in the system, in a tangible / concrete manner.

It communicates:

- A data is created/produced/etc. at system A.

- The data is transferred/copied/moved/etc. to the system B.

- The data is received/consumed/etc. by the system B.

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dekervin 683 days ago
Such a wrong take. An animated line instantly brings you focus, and remove any guess work, and unease, when analysing a complex system. And in this example , allow you to instatly replay part of the system in your head. Keep working in the direction.
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Veuxdo 683 days ago
If you replace the moving green boxes with arrows, you get the same information (specifically, flow direction). And if the goal is to show the order/steps, then the right tool for the job is a sequence diagram [0]. Again, the animations are good for getting attention, but otherwise this is re-inventing the square wheel.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_diagram

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zokier 683 days ago
The animations turn these diagrams into hybrid between basic box-and-arrows diagrams and sequence diagrams, because the animations capture the temporal relationship between actions. They certainly can not be naively substituted with static arrows without loss of information.
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Veuxdo 683 days ago
As noted below, the right tool for that is a sequence diagram [0]. These can be static images and read at one's own pace.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_diagram

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