Omni Group these days has a complete set of applications developed to accommodate project management, task management, and the necessary reporting. One of the reporting tools that can be used for illustration purposes in newspapers, magazines, and books, is OmniGraffle Professional. Omni Group has recently released their public beta of OmniGraffle Professional 5, and once again has succeeded in adding useful features, while improving what was already there.

What immediately strikes the eye when launching OmniGraffle Pro 5 for the first time, is its new interface. It’s been improved and is completely Leopard-ised. This means --among other things-- that the awkward to use slide-out sheets at left has made room for a panel that slides open inwards (as with all Leopard interface applications) and that the extra toolbar that sat along the top of the OmniGraffle 4 window has been integrated into the main Toolbar in version 5. Inspectors and Library windows and panels have gone through a similar renovation round, so that everything looks really well.

The crux of diagramming is of course not mainly in a well-designed interface, but especially in the feature-richness of the program, and more specifically did we want to find out whether you can create high-quality diagram designs with OmniGraffle Professional 5 without having to use a program like Adobe Illustrator to make the diagrams look better, or to create shapes that perhaps would not be available in OmniGraffle Professional 5.

What is OmniGraffle Professional 5 best used for?

The good news is that you really don’t need any other application besides OmniGraffle Professional 5 if you’re looking for design power. The other good news is that Visio VDS files (Visio XML) is supported fully. Microsoft Visio being the industry-standard diagramming tool, it’s most important that OmniGraffle supports the format.

Actually, I believe there is little in terms of diagramming or graphing that you can’t use OmniGraffle Professional 5 for with a higher efficiency and more effective than with Illustrator. In OmniGraffle Professional 5 you will find a large number of ready-made “Stencils” which are really diagram object templates that can be customised at will. Using these stencils speeds up a design job considerably. Add to that the existence of a “Graffletopia” site where you can add your own stencils, but where you will also find stencils for most uses (some of them extremely well-designed), and you’ll understand why OmniGraffle Professional 5 will actually save a lot of time creating shapes and connections.

In version 5, you’ll save additional time because the program has some nifty new features such as the ability to auto-layout diagrams with user-selectable shape repulsion settings. Selecting one of these automatic drawing modes, will enable you to see how the finished diagram will look, in real-time, and as you add shapes and outline levels.

The new layout engine reproduces and enhances current hierarchical and force-directed layout options, as well as adding many other layout types and settings. There are now four different layout styles to choose from, including “Dot Layout” (offers four-directional layout, rank and object separation controls), Neato Layout (offers shape overlap, line length and object separation controls), Circo Layout (a circular layout that offers shape overlap, line length and object separation controls), and Twopi Layout (a radial layout that offers shape overlap, line length and object separation controls).

The repulsion and line length controls allow for much better results than version 4’s plain auto-mode. You can see what the diagram’s objects move to on the canvas, while playing with the sliders. When you’ve found your optimum layout, you can stop changing the parameters and get an ideal result.

Subgraphs to speed up diagram drawing

In version 5 there also is a new automatic connection tool, which increases flexibility a bit more. With this tool, you can quickly create connected shapes (by default all connected linearly). The workflow is that you’ll first design the shape, then click the tool and start filling the canvas with the pre-defined shapes. Afterwards, you can easily apply some outlining to those shapes. The whole process introduces customisation into the automatic drawing and layout capabilities of OmniGraffle.

Tables were introduced with version 4 of OmniGraffle, and they’re still there, just as Subgraphs. Subgraphs are layout groups that abide by layout settings, yet are considered single entities that can be expanded and collapsed in diagram view as well as outline view, showing whatever hierarchy may be present. Subgraphs are a feature of OmniGraffle Professional 5, and can be expanded and collapsed in the diagram view and in the outline view (and show their hierarchy there). Elements in subgraphs can be connected to much as like current groups.

Notes and custom key/value pair data have been added to the Note Inspector. It was unclear to me at first why you would need them, but it turns out that these actually represent object metadata. These custom data import and export to the Visio XML format. It is a feature of OmniGraffle Professional 5.

Another reason why you won’t have to switch to Adobe Illustrator anymore, at all, are the 4th type of Bezier connection lines that have been added to version 5. This new style is used by the new layout engine as well as by the Line Tool and Line and Shape Inspector. Bezier controls on lines have the same interface and implementation as bezier controls on shapes. Bezier lines import and export to the Visio XML format.

There’s more to OmniGraffle Professional 5 that I haven’t covered, but you may trust me if I say the whole application has matured and has been upgraded to a standard that certainly matches --if not surpasses-- anything available on the Mac and the Windows platform. OmniGraffle Professional 5 allows designers to rapidly and easily create diagrams that will serve as illustrations with text in magazines, books, and newspapers.

Interior architects may use it for interior planning. It can be used for brainstorming as well, although there I would prefer to use MindManager --but if you export MindManager’s diagram into an outline, you would be able to convert the MindManager mindmap into a beautiful illustration of a thought process or a planning in minutes.