Release notes

SimpleDiagrams 5.2.0 (build 44)

Before you update

  • Diagrams saved by SimpleDiagrams 5.2 need 5.2 or later, and that includes a diagram made in an earlier version once 5.2 saves it. Earlier versions don't open it (5.1 says it "was saved by a newer version of SimpleDiagrams"), and shapes copied from 5.2 can't be pasted into them. Libraries are saved as before, so 5.1 can still use them. If you share diagrams, ask the people you share with to update too.
  • Very large tables, swimlanes and containers now have limits, listed under Improved. A diagram from an earlier version that goes past one, such as a table cell longer than 2,000 characters, doesn't open in 5.2, and the message says which limit it passed.
  • Text backgrounds are gone. A label or text box that had a background colour in an earlier version opens without it, and saving keeps it that way. To put a colour behind words, select them, or the whole shape, and choose a highlight colour in the Shape Properties panel.

New

  • A new Ring in the Complex Shapes section draws a donut or pie chart in a hand-drawn style. Select it and click the small settings button beside it, or choose Format › Shape Settings…, to choose how many sections it has and how wide its band is. Use Format › Complex Shape › Add Section or Delete Section to change one at a time.
  • A new Flow in the Complex Shapes section shows the steps of a process, from 2 to 12. Its settings choose the steps' shape (Chevron, Arrow Box, Block Arrow, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Circle or Hexagon), whether the flow runs across or down, whether steps have a gap, touch or overlap, and, for rectangles and circles, a small pointer into the next step. Adding a step lengthens the flow, and switching its direction keeps the connectors on its steps.
  • A new Pyramid in the Complex Shapes section stacks 2 to 8 layers, as a pyramid or as a funnel narrowing to a spout. Choose the number of layers and the form in its settings, or use Format › Complex Shape › Add Layer and Delete Layer. Each layer has a connection point on either side.
  • A new Cycle in the Complex Shapes section draws 3 to 8 curved steps round a circle, as arrows or as chevrons, clockwise or counterclockwise. Choose the number of steps, the band's width, the direction and the arrow style in its settings, or use Format › Complex Shape › Add Step and Delete Step. Each step has a connection point on its outer edge.
  • A new Gauge in the Complex Shapes section shows a needle pointing at a value along 1 to 5 coloured bands, with a caption below it. Set the value, minimum and maximum in its settings (the value steps by a twentieth of the range), or use Format › Complex Shape › Add Band and Delete Band. Each band takes a label, such as "Low", "OK" or "High". Auto-rotate labels, on to begin with, turns each label to run along its band. Changing the number of bands, or turning Auto-rotate labels on or off, puts the labels back where the gauge places them.
  • In a Ring, Flow, Pyramid, Cycle or Gauge, click a part to colour it on its own or give it a label (a gauge's needle has none). Labels can be moved anywhere inside the shape, resized and turned like any shape's, and Reset Label Position puts them back. A label that can't be saved, for example because the page already holds as much text as it can, says why.
  • A new Entity Table draws a database table, with a row for each field's name and type, in the Complex Shapes section and a new Database section, and UML's Database Entity now places one. Right-click a field, or use Format › Complex Shape › Field Marks, to mark it as a primary or foreign key, unique, indexed or nullable. Connectors drawn to a field stay with it as rows are added, deleted or moved with the new Move Row Up and Move Row Down, which work in every table. The Database section's relationship lines (One to One, One to Many and more) use crow's-foot endings, and the Entity Relationship submenu gives a connector already drawn the same look. Library search lists a shape linked into several libraries once, from its home library.
  • Tables have the same keyboard shortcuts as Numbers: with a cell chosen, ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ insert a row above or below and ⌥← and ⌥→ insert a column, and Format › Complex Shape › Delete Row (⌥⌘Delete) and Delete Column (⌃⌘Delete) delete them. On a Windows keyboard, Delete is the Backspace key. Help › Keyboard Shortcuts lists the Option-arrow inserts under Tables. While you type in a cell, Option and an arrow still move by word.
  • Style just the words you select while typing, in any text: bold, italic, underline, font, size, colour, alignment and a new highlight colour. Use the Format menu, the Fonts and Colors panels, or the Shape Properties panel, whose text controls keep you typing.
  • Copy Style and Paste Style copy the selected words' style while you type. The Font menu gains Bigger, Smaller and Show Colors, and Center is ⌘|.
  • Give a container Format › Layout › Proportional, or choose it from the container's right-click menu, and the shapes inside spread out or close in as you resize it. Each keeps its own size, so icons and text never stretch, and connectors between them follow. Locked shapes stay where they are, and the container can't be made smaller than its largest shape. Free keeps shapes where you put them, as before.
  • A new Notes and Cards section in the Library panel has six notes to drag out: Sticky Note, Index Card, Taped Note, a luggage Tag, a Notebook Page torn from a spiral pad and a Pinned Note. Each arrives in its own colours and keeps your words clear of its tape, hole or pin. Every note sits on the page with a very slight shadow, on the canvas and in exports; turn off Show drop shadow on notes and cards under Canvas in Settings if you'd rather not have it. A note keeps the look it was placed with, so Page › Add Sticky Note, Add Index Card, the Note tool (N) and the Shape Properties panel's Annotation choice have gone; notes in your existing diagrams keep their look.

Improved

  • The Desktop Licence Agreement (version 1.1) and the SimpleDiagrams Shape License (version 5.1) are updated: the shapes supplied with SimpleDiagrams and downloaded from the website are now covered by the Shape License, which also explains how they were made. If you bought SimpleDiagrams directly from our website, you'll be asked to accept the updated agreement once when you first open this version.
  • A diagram copied without its empty assets folder, for example from a Git repository, now opens. Saving it puts the folder back.
  • If a later version adds a new kind of complex shape to a diagram that 5.2 can still open, 5.2 shows that shape as a grey box saying "Made with a newer version of SimpleDiagrams." You can move, resize, rotate, copy, lock or delete it, and group it unless it holds other shapes, and it's saved just as it came; update SimpleDiagrams to change it. A diagram saved in a later document format still needs that later version.
  • Very large tables, swimlanes and containers stay quick to scroll, edit and export. Containers and lanes hold up to 1,000 shapes, a table cell up to 2,000 characters and a page up to 2,000 complex shapes. An edit that would pass a limit is refused with a note that says why.
  • An image's Image Layout (Fit, Fill or Stretch), Background and Border have moved out of the Shape Properties panel. Select an image and click the small settings button beside it, right-click it, or use Format › Image.
  • A lifeline's Ends in Destroy Mark is no longer in the Shape Properties panel. Select the lifeline and click the small settings button beside it. It's still in the right-click menu and Format › Complex Shape.
  • Format › Shape Settings… opens the settings of a selected ring, flow, pyramid, cycle, gauge, image or lifeline from the keyboard or with VoiceOver. It's in the shape's right-click menu too.
  • Right-click menus no longer show shortcuts, which stay in the menu bar, and a table's right-click menu leaves out commands that can't apply.

Fixed

  • In Dark Mode, a page with no background is now white paper, as it is in Light Mode, so black lines, connectors and words no longer disappear into a dark canvas. The panels around it stay dark. A dark page is always your choice: if you want one, pick a dark colour or image in Page Background.
  • The words you type into a shape are always easy to read: the area behind them takes the colour they sit on, such as a table's header row or a coloured part of a ring, or plain white or black if the words wouldn't show up on it. In a table's other cells it shows the page. It no longer turns dark in Dark Mode.
  • On a page whose background colour is partly see-through, the grid now suits the colour you actually see, so it no longer turns white and fades into a pale page.
  • Labels in diagrams opened from SimpleDiagrams 4 keep each line you typed, instead of running the lines together.
  • Delete held with Option or Control no longer deletes the selected shapes; Delete and ⌘Delete still do. On the canvas, Return, Tab and Escape act only when no modifier key is held (Tab also works with Shift), and the arrow keys no longer nudge with Command or Control held. Those keys now reach macOS, so Control-Tab moves the focus as it does elsewhere.
  • File › Page Setup… now closes when you click OK, and Print uses the paper and orientation you chose (unless the page has its own Output Size).
  • Words that don't fit, such as in a table cell, a lane title or a part of a ring, are no longer lost when you save, autosave, export or print while typing them. They stay where you typed them so you can shorten or copy them, and a note says why the save, export or print waited.
  • Export and Print now include a label you are still typing, instead of its earlier words, so you don't need to press Return first.
  • Side panels resize as soon as the selection changes, rather than after your next edit, and settle cleanly when you hide and reopen them. With VoiceOver on, the Library no longer repeats its announcement when you import a library.
  • With VoiceOver on, pointing at a tool now reads the tool's name instead of "System dialog".
  • VoiceOver now says each control's name once instead of twice, for example the Shape Data panel's title, Open Page Data, Data Actions, Manage Libraries and each panel's options and hide buttons, and buttons that only show an icon, such as Undo and Redo, now have a spoken name.
  • Pages with a great many dotted or dashed shapes, lines or connectors draw reliably.
  • A library you removed in an earlier version is no longer deleted when its saved copy can't be read. SimpleDiagrams keeps the copy and says so in the Library panel, with a Show in Finder button to find it, and tries again the next time it opens.
  • A library or Visio file dropped on the app that is too large or not a proper library is refused straight away, rather than after it has been copied.
  • Artwork that couldn't be prepared for the canvas while your Mac was short of memory now appears once memory is free again, instead of staying missing until the document is reopened.
  • Exported SVG files place each line of a multi-line label, connector label or table cell on its own line instead of printing them on top of each other.
  • A curved connector bent back past one of its ends now keeps the whole visible curve for clicking and label placement, and Visio lines that double back on themselves keep their turning point when imported.
  • Imported SVG artwork now draws a part marked visible inside a hidden group, and hides parts marked visibility: collapse.
  • Visio dates that carry a time with fractional seconds now arrive as text with the full time instead of being cut to the day.
  • Numbers typed with a decimal comma, such as 8,5, now work in the page background's image position and size and in Page Output Size, wherever your region writes decimals that way.
  • A connector or connector point that would take a document past the most it can hold is no longer added, so the document can always be saved.
  • Colour and texture swatches in the appearance popovers can be chosen from the keyboard with Full Keyboard Access, and with VoiceOver.
  • Direct download only: Help › Your License Information… › Remove Licence… now says so when the key could not be removed from this Mac, instead of reporting it removed.
  • The Font Family menu shows a font your diagram uses but your Mac doesn't have as "(Not Installed)" instead of a blank menu, and a Shape Data choice whose option was removed shows as "Unavailable choice".

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