2010 has already been a crazy and productive year at Gliffy. We’ve successfully moved our office headquarters into a beautiful new space that will surely invigorate our creative juices, and we’ve also been busy improving the quality and usability of Gliffy Online. These improvements include upgrading our server architecture, eliminating many of the rare yet complex bugs that our system and helpful customers notify us of, and tweaking our interface so that you can create more impressive diagrams with ease.

You’ve probably already noticed that we’ve vastly improved the output of our exported PNG images and the look of the published diagram landing pages. For images, the text and colors should now be accurate with what you see in the editor, and you can still export up to our 5000 x 5000 pixel limit. Also, the SVG export feature provides inline images (no more zip files) and handles all international characters correctly.

The other big improvement is with our Connector/Line tool. Our old version of the connector tool seemed to have a mind of it’s own at times. The new connector tool will now route itself in ways that you would expect, and you can make adjustments to a segmented line and those adjustments will stick when moving connected shapes. Also, you can now add rounded corners to the right-angle segmented lines. This should be ideal for Business Process diagrams or for making your flowcharts look more elegant. With a line selected, you will notice a new “Line Type” property drop-down in the Line Properties area on the top right of Gliffy. To top it off, we’ve added more connection points to commonly used shapes like rectangles, processes, etc.

Here are links to a vast list of the other bugs we’ve fixed and improvements we’ve made:

• JIRA ISSUES – SWF9B
• JIRA ISSUES – SWF9C
• JIRA ISSUES – SWF9D

We’ve got some really exciting things we’re working on in the next few months, so stay tuned!!

We’re upgrading our server hardware, and rolling out some product updates between 7PM-7:30PM PST on Wednesday February 24th. This upgrade will require some downtime of the gliffy.com website and the Gliffy Online service.

If you experience save errors during this window, please wait until after 7:30PM PST, and save again.

The entire Gliffy staff is proud to provide our Gliffy Users with (drum roll please) the Gliffy User Manual

Now, as you work on your complicated Network Diagrams or fancy Flow Charts, you can easily search for basic how-to’s, hints, tips and features in the Gliffy User Manual. We still cant help with shoveling snow, but we are happy to provide you with a way to navigate our application.

The current manual covers Gliffy Online, Gliffy Confluence Plugin, Gliffy JIRA Plugin. Wondering how to add links to your diagram or publish your diagram — It’s all in the manual.

Thanks to all for their hard work on pulling this long-awaited feature from a JIRA issue to reality.

Keep those suggestions for features coming — we love to create the program you love!

–Your Gliffy Team

Two minor bugs have been fixed with the Gliffy Confluence Plugin version 2.0.3.

• [GLIFFY-1710] – System Error anytime we try to use the gliffy plugin
• [GLIFFY-1761] – Full Size link goes to page that just prints $globalHelper.renderConfluenceMacro($macro)

We suggest all customers upgrade to this release.

Today we are announcing that releases of the Gliffy Confluence Plugin and the Gliffy JIRA Plugin issued after March 31st, 2010 will require JDK 1.5 or better. The Gliffy JIRA Plugin version 2.2.0 and The Gliffy Confluence Plugin version 2.2.0 will likely be the last versions of our plugins that are JDK 1.4 compatible.

Our decision is based on the fact that the Sun EOSL date for JDK 1.4 was October 30th 2008, and Atlassian stopped supporting JDK 1.4 with the release of Confluence 2.9 and JIRA 4.0. Since Atlassian’s customers must now all switch away from JDK 1.4 anyways, we feel like it is reasonable to require JDK 1.5 as the minimum JDK version.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Gliffy support.

Today we did a major update of Gliffy Online. Gliffy Online now requires the Flash Player 9 to run. This upgrade now gives Gliffy greater performance and usability. We’ve seen at least a double in performance gain in many key areas of the application. The upgrade to Flash Player 9 also helps us to continue to focus on improving the quality of Gliffy Online. Already, significant enhancements have been made in this release that include an improved zoom feature, right-click options, easier page navigation and better usability with shape drag and drop.

Additional New Features:

• Improved Zoom – Huge performance boost and accuracy of position
• New Right Click Menu options:
  • For shapes: cut, copy, delete, send to front/back, lock
  • For lines: cut, copy, delete
  • For the page: Paste at mouse position and zoom levels
• Shortcut Key: CTRL + + to Zoom In and CTRL + – to zoom out
• Enable Zoom with CTRL+Mouse-wheel
• Workspace automatically scrolls when drag objects outside of parameters of screen
• Have page scroll when moving shape beyond viewable boundaries
• Ability to scroll page with arrow keys
• Position text below uploaded images, as default
• Enable scroll wheel for zooming and scrolling page.
• Shift + Drag when rotating makes rotation work in 15 degree increments.
• Swimlane stencils added to Flowchart shapes.
• Swimlane stencils added to UML Shapes.
• List shortcuts in a quick list window – Click on the Help button on the top right of Gliffy to see a list of shortcuts
  

Bug Fixes:

Please see our JIRA bug tracker for fixes for this release.

HAPPY DRAWING!

Happy New Year!

Let’s start off with a flowchart, shall we?

Make the Photo supplies this first entry of 2010 (or Two-Aught-One-Naught, as I’ve decided to call it). This one walks you through the process of selecting a digital camera.

It’s not quite as complicated as our guide to Choosing an HDTV, but that isn’t a bad thing–particularly if you’re having a little trouble getting your brain started this morning!

It is possible, according to the experts, that your website sucks.

Bruce Alderson of Warped Visions put this handy flowchart together to let you know.

Easy. It’s a joke, see? You’re website doesn’t suck. Probably.

If you haven’t seen this animated flowchart by Jonathan Jarvis and you’re still scratching your head about where all the money has gone, now’s your chance.

click through to watch the animated video

Flowing Data features Mr. Jarvis’ thesis work in their end-of-year wrap up and it’s definitely worth a watch, even if only for the lovely way he presents the information. Let’s hope 2010 is a little less financially explosive…

It is the time of cheer, the season of giving, the day you begin to seriously panic because you haven’t yet finished your holiday shopping.

Easy, there, tiger. Gliffy has you covered. We want all of your perfectly chosen presents to find their way under your tree, or beside your menorah, or <preposition> your <appropriate religious/cultural symbol> in time.

And, naturally, we’ll help out with a gift of our own: a flowchart plotting what we see as the simplest path to holiday shopping success.

click image to see full flowchart

Don’t you feel better now? That’s gotta make it all a bit easier, although even we can’t help you choose a gift for Aunt Maureen.

If you’re really stuck for present ideas, how about giving yourself a gift that clarifies everything? That’s right! Licenses for Gliffy Online are only $5/month!

Our online diagram editor makes it easier than ever to create great looking drawings like this Holiday Shopping flowchart. With Gliffy, you can easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more. Check it out for 30 days for free.