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

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…

Did you get enough to eat this Thanksgiving? I sure did. I was stuffed before the main course hit the table and that’s not even mentioning the two desserts my wife made.

But, I suppose you might still be hungry. And if you’re still hungry and you like flowcharts, then of course you’ll want to check out RecipeFlowCharts.

Yeah. I didn’t see that one coming either.

On this new (and perhaps already dead) blog, an unidentified author presents recipes in flowchart form. Two are currently posted; Chicken Tikka Masala and Cheddar Broccoli Lunch Muffins.

It’s an interesting idea. Having not yet tried out either recipe, it does look like this format may actually be easier to use. I’m the kind of cook who needs a recipe and who always needs to check and recheck it as I cook. I get lost. I can’t remember when I’m supposed to stir in the almonds or when I’m supposed to brown the onions.

What do you think?

While we’re talking about stuffing our faces, here’s another flowchart from Eating the Road, this one on which breakfast cereal is right for you.

This one is getting the big love over on Digg, but I’m still squarely in the not-impressed camp. If you think this is great, please share. I’m very curious.

Oooh look! It’s the elusive flowchart seen in its natural habitat! It isn’t often we get to see a flowchart out of it’s internet-burrow (they’re nocturnal), so let’s see what we can learn from this brave little fella.

This picture of a sign at Market Lane Coffee in Melbourne Australia is from Flick’r user MuteMonkey.

Market Lane in turn bounces credit for the inspiration for their sign to Volta Coffee in Florida. So hats doffed all around, gentlemen and ladies. Good idea. (Now, can you get Americans to learn how to make a flat white? Awesome.)

This flowchart isn’t complicated or anything, but it doesn’t need to be. It isn’t fancy; just chalk on board. It is, however, satisfyingly clear. It tells you what you want to know without any delay and that means you’re that much closer to a damn fine cup of coffee.

Make mine a double.

For those of you traveling, good luck with the lines. And for all y’all, happy Thanksgiving.

I am a professional writer. Occasionally, I click send on an email only to glance at it again and release a long, horrible, Skywalker-esque “noooooooooooooooo!’

I’ve missed an apostrophe.

Luckily, thanks to the flowchart created over at the Oatmeal, this ghastly happenstance need never occur again.

click image to see full flowchart

This is just a segment of the full flowchart. If you have a lot of trouble with rules like this, or teach English to the apostrophatically challenged, they also make a poster.

This flowchart is an interesting variant on the standard form. It blends the usual bubble/arrow layout with more extensive copy. In this case, I’d say their format works well. The flowchart is easy to read,  graphically engaging and plenty useful. Kudos Oatmeal.

flow chart also flow·chart (flchärt)n. A schematic representation of a sequence of operations, as in a manufacturing process or computer program

That’s according to the Free Dictionary.

And if we accept that definition (as we do) the only thing keeping this most-excellent map from being a flowchart is sequence.

This beautiful translation of the Eisenhower Interstate System into “London Tube” map style was done by Flick’r member Senex Prime. You really need to click through to the large version to appreciate it’s majesty.

It isn’t a flowchart though. It’s a map. If it had directionality built in, then it would qualify. It’s really too bad, since there’s no possible way I could post it on this blog unless it’s a flowchart…

Perhaps if we say this map was designed to get me from Boston to San Francisco? We could overlay a few arrows, highlight one preferred route?

Whatever. One must accept life as it presents itself.

I wanted to share it here because it is such a beautiful design (based on the work of H. C. Beck, who did the London Underground map). It’s visually pleasing and wholly useful. How many things can you say that about? Excellent work Senex Prime!

As Senex says on his Flick’r page:

“I have rendered the Interstate system in a much simpler form. I have made the “major” highways (those divisible by 5) the framework of the map, with the “minor” highways reduced in importance and rendered as thinner grey lines. Even with these highways, a difference in the greys indicates whether they are even-numbered (west-east) or odd-numbered (north-south). Dots on the highways indicate interchanges: large dots where major highways meet other major highways, smaller dots where major meets minor and tiny dots where minor highways begin or end. A full key at the bottom indicates clearly where each highway begins and ends.”

Honestly, I can imagine traversing the country with nothing more than this map and I’ve driven back and forth three times.

I came across two flowcharts worth sharing this morning.

The first is from Christene Barberich, Piera Gelardi and Joshua Covarrubias, writing and designing for Refinery 29. They’re poking fun of Scott Schuman whom you might better know as the Sartorialist. In case you’re not a fashionista, the Sartorialist posts photos on his popular blog of people wearing interesting outfits. Being featured is a bit of a coup for a certain sort.

I will never be featured on the Sartorialist, but you might, and your chances might be better if you use this guide.

The second flowchart is a bit more charged. It covers the arguments for and against gay marriage, as seen by Patrick Farley — someone who supports gay marriage (as I do personally). Regardless of how you feel on this issue, you have to admire his work; this chart of for/against clashes might as easily be tracking troop movements in a guerrilla skirmish.

I have to note here that while I’m happy to discuss political issues on my own time, that’s not what this blog is about. We’re here to look at flowcharts.

Full disclosure: I (heart) guts.

In this case, what I’m talking about is the anatomically obsessed illustrator who creates t-shirts, plush toys, buttons and stickers of cartoon-y organs under the moniker I (heart) guts.

I first saw her work at a craft fair in San Francisco and had a hard time not buying one of everything. Luckily for my wallet, she was out of a lot of shirts in my size (damn you pituitary gland! get to work!). In the end, I only ended up with one lovely item.

Maybe if you all click through to her site and buy something she’ll thank me with free shirts? This one is my favorite (hint hint).

To get to the point; today in my web scouring I came across her blog and this informative, kooky and gorgeous flowchart.

I think I can honestly say that I’ve never before so loved the menstrual cycle. As she says herself on her post (which you should visit), “I know it’s a little crazy-looking, design-wise, but then again, so’s the menstrual cycle.”

In this flowchart, I’m digging the style, the color, the craziness and how perfectly she uses the format to make something complicated engaging and fun. I heart it. There should be one on the wall in every high school science class.

I do love a complicated flowchart. There is something inherently engaging about following all the paths, crossing and twisting around the diagram, until you reach all possible endings. I blame Choose Your Own Adventure books.

These flowcharts from New York Magazine, though, make my brain hurt.

Does presenting information in flowchart form always make it easier to understand? Maybe, in this case, presenting it in flowchart form is supposed to make it more complicated, so we see exactly how convoluted a process news creation is?

I get it. Their article, Where News Comes From by Jeff VanDam (no design credit on the flowcharts), impresses me with just how nutty the evolution of news can be.

I don’t want to read the flowcharts, though. Since each path is linear and only the news sources cross between them, I wonder if this isn’t a case in which the information would have been better presented in another form?

What do you think?

Until I saw this poster, I didn’t think of subway maps as either beautiful or flowcharts. This one though, created by NYC graphic designer/illustrator Erin Jang, is both.

Erin’s nephew’s had a subway-themed birthday party and she made this one-glance map for him that includes all the places and subway stops that he’d rejoice over. Her nephew is three. I’m 37 and the subway in San Francisco is pretty useless, but I still want one.

So; you agree that this is beautiful certainly, but is it a flowchart? I think so. You have direction and process and you can map the results of your choices. Just because you’re three years old and your choice is to see the Mets (too bad he can’t take the subway to Fenway…) doesn’t detract from it’s essential flowchartiness (<- not actually a word).

Check out Erin’s other work on her blog. She designs for Esquire magazine and specializes in custom wedding invitations for people like you. If you’re in the glorious frenzy that is the pre-wedding black hole, she might be your savior.