Two recent labor ( editing a 700 - varlet internet site and designing a pocket-size iPad app ) had me care for a simple yet sophisticated drawing program that would let me instance the relationships within bunch of pages ( for the former ) , and the flow of the port ( for the latter ) . Had I known aboutShapes 2.6(Mac App Store link ) in meter , it might have been the solvent for both .
Shapes lets you draw organisational and flow chart with a variety of shape , product line , and arrows . It has a beautiful , elegant - looking user interface that is supremely Mac - like , with a multi - faceted Inspector that let you tweak line widths and styles , line and fill colors , text , and even fill a shape with an picture . Basic grouping , alignment , and ignition lock / unlock commands help keep thing neat . you could export your documents in several different look-alike format ( .jpg , .gif , .png , and .tiff ) , as well as PDF .
But physique needs more user interface attention at another degree . To put a conformation in your papers , you either double - tap it in the toolbox or sweep it from the toolbox into side ; then you adjust its sizing by dragging its handles . This feel like an extra , unnecessary step : I want to just tap a instrument and pull back with it .
attach shapes with lines ( and if you do n’t require to do that , you do n’t postulate this political platform ) is also awkward . With the shapes in the document , threefold - click to tally a crinkle , drag one end of it to meet a handle on one condition and the other end into a handle on the 2d bod . I just need to snap up the air shaft and make a line from one box to another without having to aim for the lilliputian handle . I smartly aggroup dissimilar curing of argumentation so I could switch their width and styles in batches , only to receive that grouping lines detach them from their contour , and frailty versa . Reattachment was somehow even more windy than lay out them up the first time . And , while conform the curvature of a rounded rectangle is a written report in interface elegance , if you convert the form ’s width , you could easily lose the curved shape entirely .
But Shapes satisfy a trenchant niche , and you wo n’t notice a more thorough or more beautifully designed app at this price .
