This is OmniGraffle 7: a major upgrade focusing on quality of life improvements and new features, each making work faster and easier for anyone who thinks about UI, UX, graphics, or diagrams every day. And it’s pretty great.
When we introduced OmniGraffle 7’s public test phase, I talked about what we wanted to accomplish with this major upgrade:
OmniGraffle has had success over the years by being a very powerful, customizable, and reliable app for a pretty expansive set of use cases. In more recent years we’ve gotten feedback from UX and UI folks that said their jobs (and needs) are changing. This set of users were requesting features specifically to help design for high-density screens and multiple platforms, showing interactions, working on smaller screens, and more.
OmniGraffle 7 is the first in a line of steps aimed at improving and speeding up workflows for UX and UI folks, and Graphic Designers. The bulk of new features—and enhancements to older features—come by focusing on getting work done faster: less clicking, more focused tools, a polished interface.
In the past few months, many of you have downloaded and provided valuable feedback. We’re really grateful for your feature requests, ideas, and workflow suggestions and excited with how they affected the finished product! In the last several weeks we’ve been clarifying many of the new tools and interactions, and we think we’ve gotten most of it right. (That’s not to say we think we’re done adding and advancing features!)
What’s New in OmniGraffle 7?
There are a lot of features worthy of more than just a sentence or two, but here are a few words about our favorites:
- Infinite Canvas: In 7, toggle the direction in which your canvas grows. It’ll expand automatically whenever and wherever you need more room.
- SVG Support: When we first implemented SVG export in OmniGraffle, there were very few other apps that did the same, so we didn’t worry about Import. In 7, you can paste SVG code directly on to your Canvas or drag in a file.
- Artboard Layers: Artboards not only fix the problem of multi-resolution assets, but they also make organizing and moving your artwork intuitive in OmniGraffle. (Artboards affect anything above them in the stack inside its bounds or overlapping—sort of like a container or group, without group behavior unless you want it.)
- Convert Line to Shape: Convert any line to a shape in 7. Once you have a shape, add a gradient or work with its Bézier points to tweak line endings!
- Convert Text to Shape: Though we didn’t build in a font editor, we did add a great way to style or tweak your text’s characters. When converting a set of text to a shape, you’ll have access to fill, blends, stroke—everything you already use OmniGraffle for.
- Point Editor: A brand new tool for 7, the Point Editor makes it easy to access each point on every object. Bounding boxes no longer get in the way.
- Keyboard Shortcuts: We get a lot of email about keyboard shortcut preferences. In 7 you can choose your own shortcut for each and every menu bar command or setting, and we included a few sets from other apps: Illustrator® and Sketch.
But there’s even more! Our release notes tell even more.
Trying and Buying OmniGraffle 7
For the first time ever, our 14-day trial is available in both the Mac App Store and the version you download directly from us—it’s never been easier to buy OR try OmniGraffle.
Late last month our CEO, Ken, wrote a blog post about the big change for the Mac App Store version:
The app is now a free download. When you first run the app, you’re asked whether you’d like to start a trial or purchase a license. But before you purchase anything, we also explain that discounted pricing is available to existing Mac App Store customers.
You should read more about why this was important for us to do, but at the heart of it is being able to offer both a 100% free trial and the exact same discount that we’re able to offer on our own store.
For new users, the price is exactly the same as OmniGraffle 6: $99.99 for Standard, $199.99 for Pro. Already own OmniGraffle? Current customers get a 50% discount. (And recent purchasers get the upgrade for free. More details about all upgrade options here.)
OmniGraffle 7 Live Workshops
We have a few Facebook Live events planned to show off OmniGraffle 7 workflows. Head to our Facebook page, Like or bookmark the page, and come back at showtime! We’ll do our best to get the word out right before it starts, too.
Introducing OmniGraffle 7 on October 18th at 11am PST:
OmniGraffle Product Manager, Dan Walker, takes you on a tour of the new features in OmniGraffle 7, from Infinite Canvas to Artboards, the redesigned Sidebar, and more.
Artboards in OmniGraffle 7 on October 19th at 11am PST:
Dive deep with Dan Walker into the new Artboards features in OmniGraffle 7, and learn how their flexibility can make your workflows more efficient.
UX Design with OmniGraffle on October 20th at 11am PST:
UX Designer Andrea McVittie shows how to design a small iOS app, moving your sketches and app ideas into OmniGraffle to create mockups to share with your team.
More Tips on Inside OmniGraffle
There are millions of ways to get your point across in OmniGraffle, though we’re positive we don’t know them all. We’re launching a brand new website, Inside OmniGraffle, to show off as many of those millions as we can. From the basic tips like drawing an orthogonal line, to more involved processes, like setting up artboards and Artboard Layers.
Have a trick you’d like to show off? Send it to us—we’d love to include them.
What a year!
If you need help with anything OmniGraffle, contact support by email at omnigraffle@omnigroup.com, by telephone at 1-800-315-6664, or on Twitter at @OmniGraffle. Have purchasing or upgrade questions? Email our sales team or reach them at the same number above.
We hope you enjoy OmniGraffle 7! Tell us about the weird (or perfectly normal) things you’re making with it.
We’re so excited to pull the cover back on this one! A ton of work from everyone here at Omni made it happen, and we’re already hard at work on its first free update. Expect to see even more new features out of this release.
