Sequence Diagram 4+

Been looking for a while for something like this to generate sequence diagrams. Everything I was using before was like Gliphy, which made one drag/drop graphics, drag items to expand them, etc, which is a pain. This app lets me, a programmer, create sequence diagrams programatically with a DSL, which greatly increases productivity. These diagrams can then be exported to images or PDFs for sharing, or by the save file for collaboration.

The only thing that this app is missing (which I was debating a 4-star review bescause of, because it is annoying and potentially problatic for larger diagrams with frequent edits), is that one cannot highlight multiple lines and hit 'tab' to increase the indentation. Doing so results in behavior like TextEdit, where the highlighted text is deleted and replaced with a tab character. Not sure if this is intentional (simple text editor), but I would have liked to see if behave like an IDE and increase the indentation for the highlighted lines.

Many thanks for the kind review, Rlatic; it is greatly appreciated.

Please highlight multiple lines then use the "Editor -> Shift Right (CMD+])" menu option, to indent multiple lines.

I sincerely hope that helps.

-- Mike.

If you want sequence diagrams this is the way to go. Not only can you devise all the basic flows, you do so with a interpreted “compiler” window that processes a set of simple commands/syntax. You might think this is round-about compared to directly manipulating graphical elements, but I find somewhat to my surprise that thinking about sequence construction using the app’s syntax is a much cleaner and more clear approach to design—and the drawing is done automatically and with pretty good aesthetic values too. This is a very unusual example of both perfect fit of execution to the problem space as well as providing enough, but not too much capability and without any missing. When you use a tool like this, the fit is so precise that tool use sort of disappears from your immediate consciousness and you just solve the problem. Tremendously productive, I learned in in about 15 minutes. Very very good work.

Thanks for the kind review, Big Balagan; it is greatly appreciated. -- Mike. 🤓

Either you need sequence diagrams or you don't, but if you do use them then this is pretty ideal. Can't tell you how much easier it is to script out the sequence than it is to try and drag/drop your way to a diagram using a graphical tool. Enormous time saver putting everything into the form of a script actually helps me think through the interaction. Also, because the tool is based around text files, you can do all of the normal text file things with them (manage them in git, check for diffs, versioning, etc). Incredibly useful.

My only suggestion / request would be that the developer build out some of the other UML diagrams using exactly the same approach. Personally I'd love to get something like this which would let me built out activity diagrams and state diagrams as well.

Thanks for the kind review, ParietalGuy - it is greatly appreciated. -- Mike.