Differences from other software

Some literature on other diagramming tools quite often calls lines one dimensional shapes, and compound shapes two dimensional shapes. Some books even operate with a third dimension (for the cylinders you used in the income flow diagram in Chapter 2, Stencils). On top of the dimensions, you can have open and closed shapes. It might sound very impressive or important to have these distinctions but in the end your result will be a diagram.

Even if OmniGraffle does not complicate its jargon by using dimensions or open or closed shapes, the results are often more stunning to look at compared to other diagramming software.

Note

If you have been using Microsoft Visio on a Windows platform, you should know that none of the shapes in OmniGraffle (version 5) are, at the time of writing this book, intelligent shapes the way Visio defines this.