I love online tools, especially when they’re cool. And free makes them even better!
Such is the case with these three flowcharting tools. I think they’re just as powerful as the high-priced packages you’ve seen (e.g. Microsoft Visio). And some are even better than what you may be used to.
bubbl.us
This web app is fun to use. You can easily create parent objects and their children simply by hitting the “enter” or “tab” keys.
Hovering over an object causes additional functionality to magically appear. Moving around the workspace is simple as is moving around the objects.
You can save and share your works — even export them. I particularly like the way objects blow-up when you delete them. 
Mindomo
More along the lines of what you would expect mind-mapping software to behave, Mindomo has some nice features.
While it did have a clean interface, I did find it hard to use intuitively. Moving objects seemed to resist my moves. I did like, though, the ability to add notes to each object that could be collapsed at the click of a button.
Flowchart.com
Of these three, I think you’ll find Flowchart.com to be the most refreshing and versatile. It offers you the standard shapes you’ve come to know in flowcharts.
But one of the things that wow-ed me was it’s extensive library of other objects in clip art and photo formats: food, construction, computers, people, animals, and lots more. It was easy to create and modify my sample. You can also share your creations with the public, collaborate with others, and save as a PNG or PDF.
[tags]flowcharts,online tools,software,free[/tags]
{ 11 comments }
I’m going to have to checkout Flowchart .. if only for the clipart
I think you’ll be pleased with it. What I liked about it is that you could easily enlarge those objects without losing clarity.
Hi Mark,
Nice selection, I mindmap and flowchart quite a lot. Mindomo looks very promising.
If you have MS Excel installed you can also use it to flow chart and not have to learn a new interface, I’ve just written an article on doing this:
http://haris.tv/2007/06/25/how-to-flowchart-with-microsoft-excel/
Haris
Hi Haris,
Thanks for dropping by and for the tip. I’ll check it out.
Cool, would be nice to hear what you think
I’m with you Brown. Do you guys have to use Flowcharts in what you do? Thankfully I don’t, but maybe that means I’m doing something wrong!
Hi Bush! Good to see you back.
I’m not sure how useful the clip art would be outside of flowchart, but i suppose it’s possible. I don’t use flowcharts much outside of work and even then it’s a different program I use, but this is a nice alternative.
I’m finding I use them more and more. I design systems, processes and do alot of coding.
Drawing a flowchart breaks it down and makes it easier to code with a visual representation to refer to.
Haris
Not really, but I’m always on the lookout for unique clipart hehehe
hm cool interesting, I just started using visio I’ll have to check theses out great find thxs!
Hi Web, thanks for stopping by!
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 3 trackbacks }