When I write blogs or public account articles, most of my block diagrams are actually created using PPT software, which is simple and quick. If you’re not accustomed to using other drawing tools, PPT software is actually a good drawing choice.
However, two weeks ago, when I was preparing a project work report document in an Ubuntu environment, drawing became less convenient. So, I had to look for some online drawing websites to create diagrams.
Below, I will introduce several commonly used and excellent drawing tools, along with the strongly recommended tools I am currently using.
1. Introducing Several Excellent Drawing Tools
1. Draw.io
Draw.io is an open-source flowchart drawing tool on GitHub with rich features. It supports flowcharts, UML diagrams, architecture diagrams, prototypes, and more. It also supports synchronization with cloud storage services like GitHub, Google Drive, and OneDrive, and is completely free.
Online web version address:
https://www.draw.io
However, the online version may be slow to access. If you find the web version inconvenient, you can also choose the offline version, as Draw.io provides a multi-platform offline desktop version for download.
The offline version requires some configuration to use. Draw.io is the tool I am currently using and recommending in this article, so I will also explain how to configure and deploy the offline version of Draw.io below.
2. ProcessOn
ProcessOn is an aggregation platform for online drawing tools that allows you to create flowcharts, mind maps, UI prototypes, UML diagrams, network topology diagrams, organizational charts, and more, all from your browser, enabling you to unleash creativity and plan work anytime, anywhere.
ProcessOn has certain limitations; the free version can only save 10 files online:
However, it can generally meet our daily needs. The last time I prepared a work report, I used this tool to create several block diagrams, exported the images after finishing, and it was very convenient.
3. ProcessFlow
ProcessFlow is a secondary development based on Draw.io, similar to ProcessOn, which allows you to save flowcharts to cloud servers such as Baidu Cloud and Gitee. It enables online preview and management, making it very convenient.
I discovered this tool by chance and haven’t used it specifically for drawing, but you can try it out if you’re interested.
4. Visio
Everyone should be familiar with Visio. It is a very useful diagram drawing software that helps us easily create various flowcharts, including common network diagrams, organizational charts, engineering designs, and other content using modern shapes and templates, greatly improving user work efficiency.
Using Visio to create diagrams for Word documents is a great choice, as you can directly insert Visio objects, making it look much clearer.
2. Deploying the Offline Version of Draw.io
First, you need to download the offline version Draw.io draw.war package from the following address:
https://github.com/jgraph/drawio/releases
Tip: If the download speed is too slow, you can also get it from this public account (reply with the keyword: Draw.io).
The war package needs to be deployed using Tomcat. Here, I am using Tomcat 8, and the download address is:
http://www.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-8/
Tip: If the download speed is too slow, you can also get it from this public account (reply with the keyword: Draw.io).
We place the downloaded draw.war package into the webapps directory of Tomcat:
Then double-click startup.bat in the apache-tomcat-8.5.64-windows-x64in directory to start Tomcat. There may be two scenarios:
-
A black window flashes by -
Started successfully
The successful startup interface is as follows:
If it flashes by, it may indicate that your computer has not installed JDK or configured the related environment variables.
Install the JDK, and you will see:
Then, add the JDK and Tomcat environment variables:
After configuring these, you can successfully start Tomcat.
Open your browser and visit the following address:
http://127.0.0.1:8080/draw
If the following interface appears:
It means that our offline version of Draw.io has been basically deployed. However, this is still not a true offline version, as it will still access some external addresses.
To make it fully offline, you need to add the following code to the urlParams function in the index.html file located in tomcat\webapps\draw:
result['offline'] = '1' // Default offline version
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Source: Embedded Miscellany