[Sigia-l] Visualization (on OS X)

[Ziya Oz]

Several people have asked me privately what I use to visualize/present
concepts, ideas, hierarchies, sitemaps, etc. So here goes a collective
answer.

I find the simplicity, efficiency and speed of outlines unbeatable.
Collapsibility of nodes and the ability to move them up and down the
hierarchy is great. You can collapse everything and get an overall view.
Expand some to show detail when necessary, etc.

My favorite outline tool was InfoDepot, which is no longer supported. I hate
the outliner in MS Word. AppleWorks outliner is about the only thing that's
worthwhile in that package for me. If you can still work with More, go for
it. But the outliner I use today is OmniOutliner.

The great thing about OmniOutliner is the ability to create columns (next to
the outline) which then give you the ability to designate them as dates,
durations, pop-up lists, rich text, numbers and check boxes so that you can,
for instance, do project or cost tracking. As with all Omni products, it's
sparse, elegant, efficient and powerful. If and when I need charts from the
outline then I export it to OmniGraffle where they are automatically turned
into diagrams, which can be further formatted. The app is scriptable so you
can automate a lot of the workflow as well.

You can get free/trial versions of these at:
<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/>
<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/>

Now, if you like OmniGraffle, you'll certainly be intrigued by a new
visualization tool called Trout. It's an unusual tool for 'idea mapping'
with a huge potential;  currently in beta and rough around the edges, but
the developer is actively soliciting input.

Version tracker: 
<http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=14655&db=macosx>
Download:
<http://www.versiontracker.com/redir.fcgi/kind=1&db=macosx&id=14655/Trout.dm
g.sit-binhex.hqx>
 
Going beyond these, if you want to prototype database oriented apps for web
or LAN, WebObjects Direct2Web and Direct2Java allow you knock out fully
functional models *without* writing any code, with the ability to turn the
prototype seamlessly into production code.

Of course, these are all Mac OS X specific tools. For others, there's always
Visio :-)

Best,

Ziya