Firedraw: Ajax based visual modeling tool using RoR

Rails
1

Dear Friends,
We have developed an Ajax based visual modeling tool named Firedraw!
available at www.firedraw.org and we have developed it using Ruby on
Rails. Requesting your kind feedback so that we may further optimize
it and make it more useful.
Thanking You,
Best Regards,
Deepak Kapoor
CEO & CTO
Ignited Minds
ignitedminds.co.in

2

[email protected] wrote:

Dear Friends,
We have developed an Ajax based visual modeling tool named Firedraw!
available at www.firedraw.org and we have developed it using Ruby on
Rails. Requesting your kind feedback so that we may further optimize
it and make it more useful.
Thanking You,
Best Regards,
Deepak Kapoor
CEO & CTO
Ignited Minds
ignitedminds.co.in

I don’t think it’s ready for end user testing. Doesn’t work with Safari
at all, kind of works with Firefox 2.x but it’s not intuitive and looks
terrible. Sorry for my harsh words but in its current state I wouldn’t
show it to anybody.

gk

3

On 09 Jan 2008, at 13:14, Gernot K. wrote:

I don’t think it’s ready for end user testing. Doesn’t work with
Safari
at all, kind of works with Firefox 2.x but it’s not intuitive and
looks
terrible. Sorry for my harsh words but in its current state I wouldn’t
show it to anybody.

I’m sorry I have to say I agree. Doesn’t work reliably on any browser
and you really need to get a good designer (if possible someone who
also has some good usability ideas). It’s not production ready,
that’s for sure.

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

4

14 Jan 2008
Dear Friends,
In continuation of our Agile daily builds, today we have put 2 more
Usability fixes to Firedraw (www.firedraw.org):

  1. While creating New File (using Right click menu or New File link),
    a pop-up is provided to put in new file name.
  2. For drawing connectors, now all possible connect points are
    highlighted when Connector icon is clicked.

Also, some minor changes like adding different cursor types for
actions are also incorporated.
Requesting your kind feedback on Firedraw.

Thanking You,
Your’s Truly,
Deepak Kapoor
Ignited Minds
ignitedminds.co.in
[email protected]

5

16 Jan 2008
Dear Friends,
This is in continuation of our Agile build for Firedraw. With latest
build deployed, we have revamped the UI and manu usability fixes has
been incorporated.
Since this thread is already extended, I will be starting new thread
for newer UI for Firedraw.
Thanks,
Deepak Kapoor
Ignited Minds

6

Peter De Berdt wrote:

On 09 Jan 2008, at 13:14, Gernot K. wrote:

I don’t think it’s ready for end user testing. Doesn’t work with
Safari
at all, kind of works with Firefox 2.x but it’s not intuitive and
looks
terrible. Sorry for my harsh words but in its current state I wouldn’t
show it to anybody.

I’m sorry I have to say I agree. Doesn’t work reliably on any browser
and you really need to get a good designer (if possible someone who
also has some good usability ideas). It’s not production ready,
that’s for sure.

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

Thanks for your kind feedback.
I take your your advice. Surely we are working on improving usability
and screen design. Also we are working to make it more browser
compliant. Currently we are testing against IE7.x and Firefox2.x.
Following Agile method, we have decided to make fixes and patches ASAP
for any bug or functionality, rather caught in release cycle. I request
you and everyone to please keep visiting Firedraw and most important,
please keep sending your feedback so as to improve Firedraw.
With today’s build, 2 changes have been made:

  1. A Help link is provided at top menu bar.
  2. When a new file is created, it is also opened in workspace, rather
    user again double clicking on file to open it.

I also request to please see right click menus and doing format change
with that, as we have spent much time and effort into designing
relational model for that.

Thanks again.
Your’s Truly,
Deepak Kapoor
Ignited Minds
ignitedminds.co.in
www.firedraw.org