Graphviz

Graphviz from Pixelglow Software is a Mac OS X port of an open source graphing program. But non-Mac users never had it this good; Pixelglow’s version of Graphviz won two Apple Design Awards in 2004.

Graphviz produces graphs and diagrams like the well-known commercial app OmniGraffle. However, diagrams aren’t created by drawing, they are created by writing. Graphviz uses a simple language called Dot to create diagrams. For instance “source -> destination” produces a box “source” connected by an arrow to another box “destination.”

The advantage of using a language to describe a diagram is that you can easily find and replace text or have the text automatically generated by an AppleScript or UNIX script. Graphviz lets you choose your favorite text editor for working with Dot files.

Here’s an Introduction to Graphviz and Dot. (The author says Graphviz and Dot are to graphing programs what LaTeX is to word processing programs.)

Download