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Ask HN: Know any keyboard oriented drawing tools?

5 points by melle ↗ HN
Dear HN,

Do you know of any 2d drawing tools that are keyboard oriented, i.e. modal like vim?

I'm looking for something to draw software diagrams in: component, class and some use case diagrams, but I'm getting more and more frustrated by the current solutions (used Enterprise Architect)

I guess that's the problem with using vim: You want the same efficiency in other programs...

11 comments

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jotux
You could write dot files and have graphviz generate the diagrams for you.

http://www.graphviz.org/

melle
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm looking for something that is more interactive though. Ideally it should be like a love child of MS visio / LibreOffice Draw and vim ;)
brudgers
Just my two cents: for formal diagrams I find code is often faster than interactivity but feels slower because the output is indirect and so it doesn't quite feel like I am doing as much.
melle
For me this is the case as well if I know what I'm drawing. If I need to find a way to 'put things on paper', I'd rather have some interactive options, preferably speedy ones ;)
brudgers
Given the use case, PlantUML. Can be used in many editors and IDE's. It is much better than the website might suggest.

http://plantuml.com/running

[edit] AutoCAD can be run interactively from the command line. More like say Bash than Vim...and since it is extensible with Lisp, more like Emacs than Vim as well. There once was a Cad program, Generic Cad, that used two letter combinations for commands somewhat like Vim. AutoDesk bought it and killed it in the early 1990's. At the time, it was the second most popular PC Cad package behind AutoCad.

melle
Thanks for the pointer, I'm looking for something a bit more interactive though. I might run a few tests to see how quick it responds.

Ideally in the program I'm looking for I can perform editing operations on the image/drawing/diagram with a few key-strokes.

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eswat
Ronin is probably a good fit: "The application is a cross-over between Vim and Photoshop, where every change to the canvas is inputed as a command."

http://wiki.xxiivv.com/ronin

melle
This looks interesting. Maybe with some effort I can manage to couple the commands in a logical manner to a few keystrokes / chords. Thanks.
twobyfour
Logo?

Don't know what packages are available to run it on modern OSes, but LogoWriter was a great intro to programming in 3rd grade...