OmniGraffle 3
Diagram creation tool is now even better
$49.99 (Standard), $99.99 (Pro) From Omni Group, omnigroup.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 10.3 It’s testament to OmniGraffle’s versatility that its appeal lies with such an incongruous collection of fans. Website wireframers, illustrators, and process flow junkies all line up to praise its simple, unfussy approach to diagram creation.
Version 3 for iOS remains delightfully straightforward. You don’t need artistic talent to create diagrams. Instead you can drag elements to a canvas from a built-in collection of shapes and objects, called stencils. And your choices are infinitely extended thanks to a built-in link to the Omni Group’s enormous online stencil repository.
Visually, the obvious change in version 3 is a fresh, paneled look. Sidebars sandwich the canvas in Landscape mode on bigger iOS screens – they appear from the bottom on iPhones or in Portrait mode. A lot of usability is packed into the unified Navigation sidebar that gathers document objects, layers, and canvases in one place. This makes it easy to select objects based on their properties rather than search for them on the canvas.
Each OmniGraffle shape, line, or symbol is hugely adjustable through the Inspector sidebar. Once a pop-up panel, this is now
static. No doubt it’s better for the change – fewer taps are needed to adjust properties – but it feels awkward to see the Inspector button scoot along the document toolbar as the Inspector opens.
Sidebars on iOS devices are inimical to diagramming apps that thrive on space. But OmniGraffle alleviates this through a floating Tool palette that can be minimised with a tap, while a tap-and-hold gesture triggers a full-screen mode that leaves only the canvas visible.
The canvas dimensions themselves are no constraint now. At any time the canvas can be flexibly extended or made infinite, so you’ll never see the canvas edge.
If you’re used to using OmniGraffle on the Mac, you’ll enjoy a near-frictionless transition to iOS. The minor adjustments necessary – tap and hold to rouse contextual menus, double-tap a tool to keep it active – are delightfully obvious. Expanded keyboard shortcuts – only usable with an external keyboard – are consistent with the Mac’s.
Despite such compatibility, each version of OmniGraffle on iOS gives more reasons to rely on it as a standalone app. This version can import SVG images, and the developer has squeezed in a cross-platform JavaScript engine to enable you to manipulate documents through scripts. The Pro version, which adds extras such as Microsoft Visio export, includes a scripting console.
There are still features that we’d like to see – a variation of the macOS version’s outliner, which accelerates layout creation, would be the most welcome. But the Freehand tool in this iOS version compensates: draw a shape on the canvas with your finger and OmniGraffle converts it into an object.
A word too for Omni’s innovative try-before-you-buy approach. You can download the app for free, try it for a limited time, and upgrade to the full standard or pro versions via in-app purchase. It’s a clever approach that will surely be copied.
the bottom line. Still the best iOS diagramming app, OmniGraffle manages to straddle two camps by being both powerful and easy to use.