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-   -   Best drawing/doodling app to use with OOiP (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=21076)

HappyCatMachine 2011-05-14 07:30 AM

Best drawing/doodling app to use with OOiP
 
Since OmniOutliner doesn't have any illustration capabilities but does accept copy/pasted images I figured I would try to learn which of the many drawing apps is the best for the job. Two stand out, each for their own particular reasons:

[B]iDraw[/B] has by far the easiest to access interface coupled with some of the most powerful drawing tools you can get on the iPad. It's not Illustrator but it's close and not nearly a complicated. It 'feels' much like an Omni app so manoeuvring between the two doesn't require the paradigm shift that things like iDesigner require.

What makes iDraw stand out from the others is how quickly you can move between freehand sketches and illustrator like vector objects. No mode switching, it just works.

[B]OmniGraffle[/B] - While you might think that I'd recommend this for those who need to slap together a quick flow chart or ER diagram it's more of a chore than it perhaps should be. This is due in no small part to OG's awesome flexibility. If you already use OG (and I do every day) and you are a wiz at its peculiarities then by all means use it.

OmniGraffle is definitely not as snappy for freehand work as iDraw. Nor is iDraw as good at rigid diagramming as OmniGraffle. For this reason I recommend both as both can copy/paste into OO just fine.

I also recommend then when bringing graphics in you put them on their own row. You can quickly move that row by dragging in the left margin. Put it under a heading row and you can hide it easily. You can also attach notes to the row as you can other row though selecting the row isn't as intuitive as if it contained text. I usually tap in the left margin.

And of course I always recommend the BoxWave brand stylus. It makes those doodles so much neater :)

witz 2011-05-16 11:22 AM

I've got MANY art apps for the iPad, as digital painting is my main use for it.
Unfortunately, I can't really suggest any of those apps for this workflow.
None that I've found allow you to copy from the document browser, so anything MUST be exported to your photos library, then copied from there. Very slow, and you have no real control over file size.

(for what it's worth, iDraw is nice, fluid, but only Vector, not raster.)

I'm making a comic script, and I'm thinking about pasting in my rough drafts. I tried it on the iPad. Exported from Sketchbook Pro to photos (my fave besides Ideas) and then used PhotoPad to resize the image and save again to photos, then went to photos to copy, then back to OO to paste, all to see a 400 pixel image. Not really that useful.

I am 100 percent in support of a simple drawing tool within OOipad. Sketching is fundamental in my note taking. OG doesn't work for me for notetaking. I want to be able to attach images to a row, then hide them, using the whole thing like more like a database of a project, rather than a diagram. I don't see a way to collapse an image in OG like you can in OO.
When I took Art History I did a quick thumbnail sketch of every slide we discussed. Being able to hack out a thumbnail in the same app would be awesome.

and boy would I be up for beta-testing that feature. ;)

HappyCatMachine 2011-05-16 11:27 AM

I'm a huge fan of painting and illustration apps. I don't use them professionally. While iDraw is vector it offers the best sketch ability along with a compatible copy/paste of any of them. I agree that the solution isn't ideal but it's the best of the alternatives that don't involve a complex transport process.

If Omni does include sketching I would want it to be as fluid as Penultimate (I use NoteShelf by the way, I just like the pen fluidity of Penultimate :)

JohnJ80 2011-05-19 12:24 PM

I just use Pentultimate. Works just fine. You save the pages are you are taking notes and then add them later after shipping them to the photo application from Penultimate.

J.

HappyCatMachine 2011-05-19 01:08 PM

[QUOTE=JohnJ80;97746]I just use Pentultimate. Works just fine. You save the pages are you are taking notes and then add them later after shipping them to the photo application from Penultimate.

J.[/QUOTE]

Do you crop them or resize them at all? If not, how do you deal with scene size images in your outline? Or do your outlines lend themselves to large images naturally?

I crop with Filterstorm though it's a bit of a hassle.

JohnJ80 2011-05-19 01:26 PM

I don't crop them. These would be things like notes taken during engineering meetings (block diagrams etc...) and then inserting them in the outline.

J.

CaptainCowpie 2011-05-23 07:57 AM

Another nice vector drawing app is InkPad. I have gone between iDraw and InkPad, and InkPad seems more intuitive to me. It is lacking some things like gradient fills for text, but overall the interface is fantastic.

A quick drawing module inside of OOiP would be nice to have for quick sketches and mockups.

HappyCatMachine 2011-05-23 12:23 PM

[QUOTE=CaptainCowpie;97866]Another nice vector drawing app is InkPad. I have gone between iDraw and InkPad, and InkPad seems more intuitive to me. It is lacking some things like gradient fills for text, but overall the interface is fantastic.

A quick drawing module inside of OOiP would be nice to have for quick sketches and mockups.[/QUOTE]

Yes, Inkpad is good, i use it as well, but unfortunately I don't think it allows you to copy stuff unless you copy the whole page. What makes iDraw successful in this comparison is that you can select what you want and copy it into OO without any extra cropping or resizing needed.

One of the qualifying factors is that neither OG nor iDraw require you to save as an intermediary step AND they only copy what you select so the size of the drawing doesn't take up a horrible amount of space.

Personally I'd rather see robust outlining features including exportability to word processors that works without a computer, copy/paste out of OO, inclusive support of keyboard commands and so on than a drawing tool built in. Though that would be great, I think Omni has a lot to do with OO as it stands before features that go beyond outlining.

With a tool that we can copy and paste drawings in without wasting a lot of white space all things are at least good. Without a way of getting our outlines elsewhere in a format that can be word processed without a ton of work we have an outliner that doesn't really work well in many workflows.

CaptainCowpie 2011-05-24 05:48 AM

I did not realize that InkPad had that limitation. I have been exporting entire drawings, but I can see where only copying selected items would be handy. I am going to play around with iDraw a bit in the near future.

mobelby 2011-05-24 01:54 PM

Thanks for the tip on iDraw.
I bought inkpad because it got praised so much on various websites. It's quite intuitive but I'm looking for an all in one app (maybe I shouldn't but never mind) and iDraw sounds like it has some advantages at the moment:
- selective copy
- better brushes for sketching
- gradient text fill
- true colour wheel

PS I also looked at some apps for finding google and bing images to use in mind mapping and quickly came to the conclusion that a good web browser (like the one I've been using for over a year - icab mobile) is a much better option. There's some really great clipart out there !


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