Geek Reviews: Using Dia As a Free Replacement for Microsoft Visio
The retail price of diagramming software Microsoft Visio 2007 ranges between $550 to $259 depending on if you choose professional or standard, which is a lot of money for somebody on a budget. Since we love to write about replacing expensive applications with high quality free alternatives, today we are writing about Dia, a free alternative.
Dia is capable of creating electronic circuit diagrams, computer network diagrams and even simple flowcharts for business projects. You can export these diagrams with a number of image formats, or even in a format readable by Visio.
Using Dia
Dia may not be as graphically glamorous as MS Visio (hence saving a lot of system resources) but you can certainly get detailed diagrams created for your needs.
When you launch Dia you will get a view of the Toolbox. Here is where you choose objects and other tools to create the diagrams, graphs, and charts.
The other screen which opens is the Canvass. This is where you will create and edit your project.
Let’s go through and create a basic computer network diagram. These are sometimes used religiously by network administrators. This example is very simple, but keep in mind you can create diagrams as complex as you need. First you will want to go through and pick the appropriate object library for the project. There are several included by default in Dia.
After you have your toolbox set up the way you want go to the canvass and start creating the diagram. Creation is very simple once you have a basic idea of your diagram or chart. Select the objects you want to put in from the tool box then click an area in the Canvass to place them. You can resize and move them around however you see fit. Text labels and boxes are easily added.
You can also convert your diagram to several different formats by right clicking the saved file and selecting from the menu.
Here is an example of PNG format. This comes in handy so you can easily post the diagram in an email or on a web server for colleagues to view.
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Anothe good program to look at is Kivio http://www.koffice.org/kivio/ .
There is also the online Gliffy http://www.koffice.org/kivio/ .
Unfortunately, there is little that compares to Visio that is free for now.
http://www.gliffy.com/ is the URL for Gliffy. Sorry.
I started using Dia a few weeks ago for network diagramming and really like it. The only thing I was wondering is if it will open visio files. I attempted to open one, and it (obviously) did not work properly. Is there a plugin or add-on for Dia that allows visio files to open.
Been using dia for about 8 years now. I got started on it when I was doing my bachelors degree. Been using it since then for all my projects works very well. One grip I have about it, I think they should really update the icons to Tango icons like Pigin and GIMP did to modernize the program.
When my department at work moved, they kept giving me Visio diagrams of where everything was going to go. Yes, I could have loaded Visio (for whatever it costs per license) but I had a duty as the open source linux guy to use Dia. Those Windows Weenies never knew what hit `em
My only comment is that I couldn't find the electronics symbols I wanted (vacuum tubes, really!). I probably didn't spend enough time looking though.
I give it an A. It's easy to use, has a nice beat, and you can dance to it.
Beautiful…
The only issue with DIA is the inability to rotate objects in the environment. Other than that I am a convert!
The last comment says it all. You can't rotate an object or flip it left to right or up and down. That makes Dia unuseable in my opinion. Rotate is an absolute necessity.
Also, the MOST BASIC THING is missing - free drawing with the mouse like a pencil: Button down, pen is on paper and a line appears wherever you move; button up - pen is off paper and you get a blank move. How come you can miss out the most basic think - pen to paper drawing? That also makes it unuseable for me. I have still found nothing that compares to XFIG in UNIX on the Sun. All the "free" XFIG versions have problems. BTW, WTF do people who say a program can be installed on Windows put a link to a .TGZ file??? Then you have to search for a free windows untar-GZIPper, and they don't come in windows installer versions either.
Let's face it - Sun was useful at one time but is going nowehere but to the graveyard. I have 3 Sparcstations in in my basement that you can't get spares or software for for love nor money.
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