Not Ready for Prime Time

Question

Hi,

I thought it appropriate to send a short message.

yEd was recommended to us ealier this week as a possible replacement for OmniGraffle (Mac) and Visio (Windows), but after attempting a task that is very simple on OmniGraffle and Visio we regret to say that yEd simply isn't ready.

I am listing our frustrations in the hope that you might find it helpful.

1) Mouse roller zooms instead of scrolls the image

2) Grouping of objects for reuse is next to impossible

3) Pasting of grouped objects only pastes back within the parent group making groups nearly useless for large projects

4) clicking on an object to select does not always work, yet clicking outside the object always drops in a new object (which then has to be erased).

Comments

I discovered yed some time ago and use it since as an alternative to visio (expensive) and after trying many other open source and free programs.
I remember in the beginning it was a little frustrating , on the other hand I discovered amazing possibilities . I learned other people at work to use Yed and was always amazed how fast they picked up the possibilities and made beautifull diagrams in no time.  If you used viso before : take the time to learn yed (play with it) and don't expect all other programs to behave exactly the same like visio.
As a matter of fact the possibilities to reuse objects and groups and your own icons and symbols and libraries is one of the better features of yed .
A happy user.

Answer 1

Re: Mouse roller zooms instead of scrolls the image

Scroll whell behavior can be changed in "File" -> "Preferences" (see tab "General", option "Mouse Wheel Behavior").

 

Re: Grouping of objects for reuse is next to impossible

Would you care to elaborate that statement? Grouping nodes is supported as well as copy-pasting of grouped nodes.

 

Re: Pasting of grouped objects only pastes back within the parent group making groups nearly useless for large projects

When you use "Paste" from the (right-click) context menu, the copied objects will be pasted at the current mouse position. If you do not want the pasted objects to be assigned to a group, make sure to right-click some empty space.

 

Re: clicking on an object to select does not always work, yet clicking outside the object always drops in a new object (which then has to be erased).

Would you care to elaborate in which circumstances clicking an object does not select that object?
Clicking on empty space does not "always drop a new object". If there is at least one selected element, clicking on empty space unselects all selected elements.
Moreover, whether or not a new node is created when clicking on empty space may be configured in "File" -> "Preferences" (see tab "Editor", option "Create Node on Background Click").