Joel/Brain,
I just want to jump in here as it's been more than four years since the OP had asked whether OmniGraffle will support propagating changes to multiple stencil instances (this has been asked various times, including
this post from way back in 2009)
The option to automatically update stencil instances, at least for me, is one of the most useful tools OmniGraffle could possibly implement. Sure OG is an amazingly fast tool for small to medium graffle-sized projects, but I'm finding myself asking 'why?' when I'm needlessly copying/pasting revisions across multiple pages.
Could Omni Group Please look at how Axure uses Masters, or how Illustrator uses Symbols? How about when creating an OG Stencil, the user could change it's behaviour from type 'one-off' (as per todays implementation') to type 'persistent' where changes to it would propagate throughout the document? Such a powerful update would fill one of OmniGraffle's few holes as a heavyweight UX tool.
Also, (and to touch on Joel's point above) I'm really not sure about the current 'copy as PDF' to create a linkback implementation. Besides the need for a control panel area (ala Stencils) to easily maintain such a library of reusable assets, I find the files quickly become corrupted when saving, not to mention the very strange alignment bugs as mentioned (and sadly not responded to) in
this post and
this).
So having used OmniGraffle solidly for a number of years, I'm sad to say that I'm actively looking for other software to fit my needs. I had hoped that when
I had posted on OmniGraffle's Facebook page back in early December, there'd at least be some mention of an ETA for a future product. But with no indication that any instance of the above will be implemented, and the fact that there was
no mention to improved OmniGraffle in Omni Group's blog post (late December), I'm really forced to look elsewhere for a product which can deliver what I need to for my clients, which is unfortunate.
As somewhat of a side note:
Other features I would see as improvements to OG would be shared libraries across multiple documents; online syncing/revision control to enable multiple users to work on the same document; and more sufficient use of interactions - i.e. actions on steroids - but for now Axure is fine for heavier duty prototyping.
Thanks for reading.