Hey all, I made knotend [0] because I wanted a flowchart editor that was keyboard-driven and super fast. I was tired of dragging boxes around on a canvas. You may have seen knotend around here before when I wrote an initial blog post [1] about why I wanted a new kind of flowchart editor. Thank you to everyone who has given me feedback here on HN!<p>Since that blog post I’ve been working hard to get to a v1 which I’m showing now. You can use the free version without having to sign up for an account. I would love your feedback!<p>What makes knotend different is two main things: 1) The nodes are constrained to a grid which enables a keyboard-centric experience for selection and navigation, and 2) there’s autolayout so each time you add a node, the graph automatically lays itself out and places each node in a cell.<p>In the future I’ll be working on supporting more complex editing actions, linking graphs together, collaboration, and more.<p>Please drop your feedback below, reach out on twitter [2], or email scott@knotend.com.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.knotend.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.knotend.com</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.scottantipa.com/why-knotend" rel="nofollow">https://www.scottantipa.com/why-knotend</a><p>[2] <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottyAntipa" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ScottyAntipa</a>
I use Mermaid to visualize all sorts of processes, so this is very interesting.<p>Some immediate feedback:<p>- ability to name the node ID, because now the Mermaid output is hard to read and edit<p>- more shapes (diamond, circle, etc.)<p>- text on connection<p>- shortcut to connect with a node after one is staged for connection (didn't find one at least)<p>- ability to select connections with keyboard<p>- shortcut to delete the selected connection (now you need to click Disconnect, the shift+delete doesn't seem to work)<p>The layout gives me Excel vibes: what if these nodes could export values and do computation? Like, the Apple Income Statement example, but dynamic. This combined with an ability to export a snapshot as a Mermaid diagram, it would be great to explain business cases, etc.
A "flowchart" is an ANSI/ISO standard which looks really different than this. [0] Why call it a flowchart when it's not a flowchart? It's really confusing and not helping your marketing.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowchart" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowchart</a>
This is awesome. I find myself avoiding Miro/Figjam these days because of how much point & clicking and formatting I need to do to get a flowchart going.<p>Would love to eventually have functionality with this to create UML or system architecture diagrams.<p>Props for setting up monetization from the get-go and having a super simple UI.