OmniGraffle for lightweight 2D drafting
 

I became pretty good using the app Canvas for drafting, but it is no longer being updated for OS X, and I'm looking for an alternative. I used it for drawing a room I was remodeling in my home (2x4 lumber, etc., to scale), some simple furniture designs, those kinds of things. I own OG, but haven't done any of that kind of drawing with it yet. I know I need to dig in and learn, but thought I'd ask how well suited OG might be for this purpose. Typical things I did would be create a rectangle with dimensions in feet and inches, use a feature to butt that object against another, and use a dimensioning tool to show sizes (e.g., the height from floor to ceiling). I know I can do the first two of those in OG. I'd appreciate any advise from others doing this kind of work in OG. The work I do is sporadic, but when I'm drafting, I like to have tools that work well for the task. Thanks.

Bob, I'm not 100% confident I understand your question, so please forgive me if I the answer doesn't help. :-)

OmniGraffle does support document scales; there are a fair number of folks that do 2d space planning with the app.

If you're looking for 3d space planning, though, it might be possible through some sort of hoop-jumping, but I don't know of anyone that does this, and it's not something built into the app AFAIK.

Brian, I see that I can set my own Unit Scale, that is great. And very good to know that people do 2d space planning to scale. I don't need 3d. I realize that space is always at a premium, but in the Inspector for x and y, Height and Width, entries like "20 ft 10 3/8 in" get cut off a bit on the right. I'll submit a request for consideration. When object size is important, it's nice to see fully. Besides my next step of just diving in and reading up, is there a way to get dimensions of multiple objects? In Canvas, there is a dimensioning tool than can snap to lines, or do free form, and it shows you size. I can post a picture if helpful.

If you just want to get the overall dimensions of a set of adjacent objects, you can group them (cmd-shift-G), look in the inspector, and then ungroup...

Thanks for the grouping tip. Not good for permanent display, but certainly helpful. I'll put in an enhancement request for a dimensioning tool.