Diagram Designer help      

There is currently only little documentation available for Diagram Designer. This program is freeware, and development of the program and documentation depend on the help from our users. If you can contribute by writing a help / FAQ / tutorial or you have suggestions for the program you are welcome to contact us.

Diagram Designer User Manual (English)
Diagram Designer User Manual (German)
Documentation in Spanish [Doc 1][Doc 2]
Keyboard Shortcuts
Creating a polygon
Object anchors
Making template palettes
Text formatting
Rotating objects
Examples
Tutorial video
Windows setup for non-latin character sets

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Making template palettes

To add an object to the template palette, click Add template in the Object menu. By default new objects are added in the bottom of the template window, but it is possible to move them around: Right-click on the symbol in the template window, select the topmost item in the popup-menu (the symbol's name) and edit the position coordinates.
Another way to create/edit a palette is to right-click on the existing and select Copy templates to page. Now you can edit it as a normal diagram. When you are done editing just right-click in the palette area and select Make palette from active layer and then save it. Note that you can place new objects below the existing even though it looks like they are outside the drawing area - it will be expanded when you make the palette.
New objects can be either drawn directly in Diagram Designer, imported from metafile or bitmap files or copy/pasted from other programs. Link points can be added to both imported/pasted objects and group objects in the Properties dialog.
Note that when you focus a group and press F2 the text edit window will appear for the topmost object (by z-order) in the group. In e.g. the Form component in the GUI design palette the caption bar is the topmost and can thus be edited by pressing F2. To edit the text of other objects inside a group you need to right-click on the objects inside the group in the tree view in the left side of the screen and choose "Edit text".
If you've made a new object template palette for diagrams or flowcharts which you find could be useful to others, then please send it to us. It could be symbols for e.g. electronic diagrams or software design flowcharts. Useful palettes will be made available from the program download page or perhaps included in next release of the program.

Download template files

Object anchors

The Anchors property is used when an object is inside a group and the group is resized. For an example, look at the objects in the "GUI design" template palette - they use the anchors. Try e.g. to take the Form object to your diagram and resize it.
If an object inside a group is anchored to the bottom then it will follow the bottom of the group. If it is anchored both to the top and the bottom then it will resize with the vertical size of the group. Same with left/right.

Text formatting

Formatting text labels in Diagram Designer is done via special formatting codes in the text. A list of the available formatting codes is displayed in the Edit text dialog. All text is by default written in the font and style selected the Diagram | Default font... dialog. A few examples:

Format string	Result
abc	abc
\Iabc	abc
\Iabc\idef	abcdef
\016abc	abc
E = MC\H2	E = MC2
\Sa b c	a b c
\Cff0000Red\C0000ffBlue	RedBlue

Links to other diagrams
The code \Afilename.ddd will make a link to another document. To follow the link, double-click on the object. You can write any text before the link. Example:
Open test diagram\Atest.ddd
This can also be used to link to e.g. websites: MeeSoft\Ahttp://meesoft.com

Creating a polygon

	The first you have to do when creating a polygon object is to draw the outline using simple lines. In this example we will make a simple filled triangle.
	The lines must be connected with no holes in the shape.
	Then the lines should be combined to a group: Select the lines and click Object | Group.
	Now the group can be converted to a polygon using Object | Convert to polygon. Polygons can be filled and text can be written in the center.

Rotating objects

Not all object types can be rotated, but any object can be converted to a metafile object which can then be rotated. Select one or more objects, and click Object | Convert to metafile. Note that when converting to a metafile, the object will be locked so that text, color and other style properties can no longer be edited. To rotate a metafile object, change the Rotation angle in the Properties dialog. The angle is in degrees, counter-clockwise rotation.

Examples

Axonometric projection