EdrawMind is a cross-platform, multi-functional mind mapping software from Wondershare Edrawsoft. Available in free and professional versions, EdrawMind provides a variety of intelligent layouts, diverse display modes and combines design elements with pre-defined theme styles in a strive to create an efficient tool for users. Since the release of version V10.6.0, EdrawMind has integrated artificial intelligence with new AI-driven…
I love it and that is all I can say. Once you are taking notes or need to make a logical argument case, it's the tool to use. It's may not so easy to use when taking when you need to dictate by voice because the voice taking gesture doesn't work well for me
Omnigraffle is great for documentation, mapping, flowcharting, and other technical diagramming scenarios. It's simple enough to bang out a quick illustration and powerful enough to build complex blueprints for complicated technical systems. If you need cross-platform compatibility, though, you're probably better off looking elsewhere. If you want complex integration with data sources (ala Visio's SQL Server integration for shape metadata), OmniGraffle also falls short — but those scenarios are few and far between in my experience.
OmniGraffle is fairly simple to use, but the one thing I think it does best is working with curved lines, particularly if you are using some of the available arc templates. Drop an arc onto your page, then tell it the dimensions it needs to be, and viola! Done. Manipulating the arcs is as simple as clicking and dragging offset points.
OmniGraffle has also done an excellent job in stirring up the creative minds of many people who create templates and tools to work with OmniGraffle (not that Microsoft hasn't done so either), and managed to get the bulk of those into well organized repositories.
What it all boils down to for me is: it just works. One doesn't need to have a computer science degree to work with it either. It is as simple or complex as you want it to be.
Have a method to travel from one end of the relationship line to the other end
When printing the mindmap, have option to format the fit image to one page rather than tile it across the page multiple times
Improve the dictation feature when writings in the mindmap. It does not work so well
need more varied options for branching: have lightning looking branches, with a cloud being at the main start;
have tree looking branch types, with a seed at the main start; have a river tributary looking branch types, with a spring/dam/lake at the main start; have a solar system type branching, with a sun/star at the main start; have a electron system type branching, with a nucleus at the main start; in essence some type of fractals. I can send sketch examples if you want
Have option to include voice recording by directly recording into the branches
I'd love to be able to keep more than one of the different tool tabs open at a time.
The stencils are amazing. Would be great if a whole lot more of the free ones came standard as opposed to having to download them from Graffletopia or other sites.
I've used Xmind, MindMeister, Mindly, Coggle, MindMup, Mindmap Maker, SimpleMind, and a few other applications to see what they offered. I chose EdrawMind after carefully consider all the available options on the market. EdrawMind came out on top for me in terms of platform support, cloud storage, aesthetics, functionality, features, customer support and ease-of-use
While these other tools are great for what they are, OmniGraffle’s solid focus on and support for diagramming makes it our tool of choice for communicating workflows and concept relationships, creating documentation, and creating other diagrams. Its libraries allow us to create designs quickly, and its ease of use enables us to use the tool widely across the company without much time or effort spent on onboarding.
Omnigraffle isn't an expensive software tool, so there isn't really any negative from the perspective of raw cost. Thinking in terms of time spent using it on a project - what you create in omnigraffle will inevitably lead to a dead end. It's useful only as documentation. There are other tools like Sketch that integrate into prototyping software and can create useable visual assets for applications in addition to being able to create wireframes.
