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tools

Nice to have – DIA

It’s time again to present a nice tool which is free and useable. Maybe you’ve already heard of DIA. It’s a freeware and open source diagramming software. Well I would like to say „Visio clone“ but it’s not as powerful as Visio and doesn’t exactly look as nice. But hey, it’s free and it covers the main functionality.

You can import your own shapes, which should be in a XML or SVG format. DIA can be scrippted using the Python programming language.

DIA Diagramm DIA Palette

The diagrams can be saved or exported to various formats like: XML, PNG, EPS, SVG, WMF or JPEG. You can find more information or download the latest version at the official homepage.

Kategorien
tools

Nice to have – Inkscape

Ever wanted to create some nice vector graphics? Don’t want to spend money to buy „CorelDraw“ or „Xara Xtreme“. I suggest to take a look at „Inkscape“. It’s free, it’s opensource, it’s fast, easy to use, good looking and much more.

Inkscape

The program also supports various languages (with auto detection) and is avaiable for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. You can get the latest version on the offcial homepage: http://www.inkscape.org

There you’ll also find some tutorials for beginners and some more example graphics.

Kategorien
tools

Nice to have – FreeMind

Let’s start with a new series about different useful tools, well at least I think they are useful for me ;-). Today in the showcase: „FreeMind“.

Have you ever needed to make a mind map, maybe after a brain storming session in the office? I’m sure you know the commercial tool MindManager. FreeMind is a free alternative under the GPL. It is avaiable for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux as it has been written with Java. All you need is a installed Java RE (> 1.4). It’s very easy to use and it misses no features. The export functions are impressive. You can even export an interactive mind map to flash and place it on your website.

FreeMind

Different languages like English, French, Italian or German are already build in. You can download the program at the official homepage. I suggest you install the latest beta version (0.9.0 (Beta 9)), I had no problems with this version.