I use Omnigraffle as a wireframing tool for complex UI design projects.
My final deliverable to the client is often a PDF exported from InDesign containing a series of storyboards. I use InDesign frames for each frame of the storyboard, and place PNGs I've exported from Omnigraffle into the frames.
When I export new PNGs from Omnigraffle due to some required edit, InDesign automatically picks up the changes when I re-open the .indd document.
This workflow makes it possible for multiple people to collaborate on the project. Different people can work on different files until the lead takes on the coordination task of compiling and exporting the final deliverable.
So far so good, but there are some wrinkles. In order to maintain consistency, I tend to have to go through a cleanup step, where I merge the multiple Omnigraffle files into one file, and use a lot of manual manipulation of shared layers to clean up any inconsistencies, then I re-split into multiple .graffle files in order to get a nice file/folder structure for easy InDesign placement. If Omnigraffle could make use of linked assets and/or shared layers across multiple files, this time consuming manual step would be unnecessary.
Furthermore, if I could place linked assets in frames that function as masks (similar to InDesign frames) then I actually wouldn't need to use InDesign at all to make these deliverables. (Yes, it's already possible to use Paste as PDF to do mask-like tricks, but the pasted artifact doesn't get updated when its original is updated, etc. In other words, not quite what I'm looking for)
So my two feature requests are:
1) support linked assets
2) support frames
Please let me know if any of my explanation wasn't entirely clear. I'd love to know if these features are planned for a future release, or if you know for sure they won't be added for some reason.
My final deliverable to the client is often a PDF exported from InDesign containing a series of storyboards. I use InDesign frames for each frame of the storyboard, and place PNGs I've exported from Omnigraffle into the frames.
When I export new PNGs from Omnigraffle due to some required edit, InDesign automatically picks up the changes when I re-open the .indd document.
This workflow makes it possible for multiple people to collaborate on the project. Different people can work on different files until the lead takes on the coordination task of compiling and exporting the final deliverable.
So far so good, but there are some wrinkles. In order to maintain consistency, I tend to have to go through a cleanup step, where I merge the multiple Omnigraffle files into one file, and use a lot of manual manipulation of shared layers to clean up any inconsistencies, then I re-split into multiple .graffle files in order to get a nice file/folder structure for easy InDesign placement. If Omnigraffle could make use of linked assets and/or shared layers across multiple files, this time consuming manual step would be unnecessary.
Furthermore, if I could place linked assets in frames that function as masks (similar to InDesign frames) then I actually wouldn't need to use InDesign at all to make these deliverables. (Yes, it's already possible to use Paste as PDF to do mask-like tricks, but the pasted artifact doesn't get updated when its original is updated, etc. In other words, not quite what I'm looking for)
So my two feature requests are:
1) support linked assets
2) support frames
Please let me know if any of my explanation wasn't entirely clear. I'd love to know if these features are planned for a future release, or if you know for sure they won't be added for some reason.
Linear Mode
