Dan,
There is something called, something like, "TCM" which is free to use,
binary-only, a university project. It does very well at org charts, and
lots of similar applications.
The URL is:
http://www.isp.mu-luebeck.de/html/software/PD/tcm
Regards,
Matt
On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Dan York wrote:
> linux-cert,
>
> This has nothing to do with certification... it's just a personal note...
>
> If any of you - or anyone you know - are interested in developing
> a piece of software to contribute back to the Linux community,
> or just looking for an interesting programming challenge - here's
> a place you can help... org charts.
>
> They're not a sexy topic.... nothing overly exciting... and,
> in fact, for a lot of Linux organizations and startups, the
> very idea of having an organization chart might be foreign... but
> as Linux expands out into the larger IT world... well... there's
> a lot of people and companies out there that want to make org charts.
>
> I have tried for the last week or so to make an org chart describing
> the structure of LPI (requested by someone making a presentation to
> potential sponsors) and to do so with Linux.
>
> First I tried with Applixware... and I was able to draw an initial
> chart - but when I wanted to rearrange and move items around it was a
> MAJOR headache and I soon gave up.
>
> So I started searching http://www.freshmeat.net/ , http://www.linuxapps.com/
> and http://metalab.unc.edu/ . I searched for terms like "org chart",
> "organization chart", "chart",
> "diagram", "Visio" (after the PC network
> diagramming software) and came up with only a very few suggestions.
>
> One was for KOffice, which I checked into and saw KChart, but was
> unable to get it all working. (http://koffice.kde.org/kchart/)
> I had trouble with the download, and perhaps I just need to try
> it again, but the web site does say it is *pre*-alpha, so I was
> a bit reluctant to spend too much time on it, especially since the
> KChart web page said nothing about its capabilities.
>
> Another suggestion, which was also supplied from some mailing lists to
> which I posed the question, was for Dia:
>
> http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/dia.html
>
> Which turned out to be a great tool! It didn't do exactly what I
> wanted... but I was able to draw boxes, rearrange things, etc., etc.
> It was working great, and has a great set of features.... I was
> pleased and excited...
>
> And then last night, after 45 minutes of working on it, during which
> time I was saving the file every 5 to 10 minutes, Dia suddenly died
> and disappeared completely from my screen. However, what was worse
> was that somehow the program also *erased* completely the file that I
> was working on! I spent a significant amount of time using "find" and
> other tools to try to locate the file and had to conclude that it was
> gone. So I just shut down my system and went to bed...
>
> This morning, not wanting to go through all that again and being
> under a deadline, I went over to the NT box I have in my office,
> launched Microsoft PowerPoint, launched the embedded Org Chart
> tool, designed the whole chart and exported it to a PNG file - all in
> about 20 minutes.
>
> In fairness, PowerPoint has been around for a good number of
> years now, and the MS developers have had plenty of time to add
> and improve things... and the world of Linux GUI apps is still
> quite new... still... it was an annoying setback for my personal
> desire to use only Linux apps for daily operations.
>
> So... if any of you are looking for a way to contribute... here's
> a place we could definitely use a tool. Whether it's an enhancement
> to Dia... or KChart... or a completely separate app (heck, I'd even
> take a non-GUI app that generated a chart off of some type of XML file!)
> .. whatever... here's a definite hole waiting to be filled!
>
> Frustrated in org-chart-land,
> Dan
>
> P.S. If anyone *does* work on such a program, I'll be GLAD to be
> a beta-tester!
>
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Dan York, Certification Program Manager, Linuxcare, Inc.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxcare.com/
> 1-603-264-0129 mobile, 603-268-0691 tel, 603-268-0103 fax
> Linuxcare. At the center of Linux.
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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