[Sigia-l] visio feature improvements

[Todd R.Warfel]

On Monday, April 14, 2003, at 03:41  PM, David Heller wrote:

> Visio was never intended to be a GUI/IA tool like it is today. Like 
> the web
> itself it is an expansion of a tool into an are not completely 
> compatible
> with its primary design purpose.

What was it originally intended for? Something closer to Illustrator?

> As for switching to a Mac just to use OmniGraffe. I wonder how many of 
> us
> could make that sale to our managers? Spend $3500 on a new computer (I 
> use a
> kick-ass laptop) + hundreds if not thousands on licenses for all the
> software you need, just so you can use a piece of Mac software? Hmmm? 
> Seems
> a tad problematic to me. But hey that new software is only $100?
>
> -- dave

Funny, I don't recall suggesting anyone switch to a Mac just for one 
piece of software. Although, that's not a bad idea. And $3500 for a new 
computer? Are you nuts? If you're talking kick-a$$ laptop, then you can 
pick up a TiG4 PowerBook for around $1700-2300. Or pick up two for that 
$3500 you're quoting. Another ill-informed user.

But I digress.

The point is that Visio is way over priced - $1200+ per seat for a 
product that is comparable to something that costs $59 a seat. And no, 
OG isn't scriptable via VB. But as far as the functionality that Visio 
has, and is typically used for, OG matches up quite well. In case 
you're wondering, we've used Visio, OmniGraffle, Inspiration, 
Illustrator, and Freehand in the past to do our IA and flow documents.

Personally, I find using Visio akin to trying to draw with a giant 
crayon on butcher paper that's been placed over gravel. Maybe it wasn't 
suppose to be an IA drawing tool, as you suggest, but that's where it's 
at and it needs a great deal of improvement.

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

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