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This month, we’re going to finish our look at one of Ubuntu’s drawing programs, specifically for doing diagrams like flowcharts. It’s DIA, the open source analogue to Visio.
A Quick Recap on Installing and Launching DIA
Hit the key combination CTRL-ALT-T on your keyboard. That key combination will start a Terminal command-line session. In Terminal, type:
sudo apt-get install dia
and hit Enter. Answer any prompts appropriately and DIA will be installed.
Launching DIA
Now that DIA is installed, click the App Drawer (9 white boxes in a grid, bottom left of your screen):
Type DIA at the top of the screen in the search box (shown above).
Click DIA and the application will launch:
Changing Zoom Level
Click the Zoom In button, then drag from corner to corner to enlarge the page we’re working on:
Freehand Drawing Tools
There are also freehand drawing tools. Try the third box in the second row to create an ellipse:
Let’s try adding a Zigzag line (3rd row, 4th item). Use the same process to connect the decision box to the ellipse as we used last month to connect the first box to the decision box. Click on a ‘node’ once you see the first box change color as you hover the mouse, then hover over the second box until the color changes again and click the mouse to ‘stamp down’ the opposite end. A zigzag line with an arrow from the first node to the second node will be created:
We can also add a label to the ellipse by clicking the Text tool (capital letter T, 2nd row 1st box), then click within the ellipse and type to add the desired label:
If the text is not quite where we want, we can click the pointer tool again, click the text, and move it to the desired location:
Changing Default Colors
In the bottom left, you’ll see a black and a white box overlapping each other. This is the default color tool. Click the black box and it will bring up a dialogue box allowing you to choose a new foreground color, clicking the white box will let you establish a new background color. Click the Document figure on the Flowchart palette (2nd row, 4th item), then ‘stamp’ it down on the page, and you’ll see the new figure has the new color scheme:
Changing Line Widths
To the right of the color boxes, you can change the default line width. The next line you draw after making the change will have the new line width by default, and will now use the newly chosen default color, as well:
In conclusion, DIA is a powerful diagramming/flowcharting tool. We barely scratched the surface the last two months of what it’s capable of. I encourage you to try it and see how useful it can be.
Next month: Maybe the retro-gaming column we teased a month before last? Be here and see.