Software for designing overview a design? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jdraughn
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 04:18:02 pm
content: Sorry for the vague description, if I knew better what it was called, I could search google and find the answer. I am wondering if there is software to easily create an overview of how a piece of software should function where there is a short description in a box, and depending on the result will use an arrow to point to a different box (or the same one), ect...It's like psuedo code but in a more graphical format.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 04:39:42 pm
content: You are probably looking for software to draw „flowcharts“?

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 05:14:53 pm
content: <Shudder!> Does anyone outside academentia still use those things?But yes, sounds like flowcharts.A hint however, descriptions of data structures are usually far more helpful then the descriptions of the algorithms operating on them. Good data structure documentation is possibly 90+% of the battle, if I understand the data structures I probably don't much need the program flow.Regards, Dan.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 05:34:39 pm
content: Something like OpenOffice Draw, Draw.io, LucidChart etc?

author: abraxa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 07:05:04 pm
content: If you're a Mac user, check out Omnigraffle. Otherwise, yEd is not bad and there are other similar packages, too.However, I'm not quite sure that it's a flow chart you're after. To me, what you describe sounds like an architecture diagram - in the UML world this would be a component diagram or composite structure diagram. You may want to try umlet if you want to create those.

author: jdraughn
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 08:50:40 pm
content: Thanks for the replies guys. Flowchart - thats the word I was looking for. I am going to program a microcontroller to controller a dual-hbridge controller and I just wanted to organize my thoughts in how I should initalize the ports and peripherals, configure the controller, enable inputs, read inputs in a loop, send control signals to the hbridge controller, ect...

author: DerekG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2018, 09:38:07 pm
content: Quote from: jdraughn on May 08, 2018, 08:50:40 pmThen, you will need to learn a programming language, so that you can program the micro to do what you want.If you want to do this via a "flowchart" take a look at Flowcode:https://hackaday.com/2017/04/20/flowcode-graphical-programming/or Great Cow Graphical Basic:http://gcbasic.sourceforge.net/Typesetter/index.php/HomeGreat Cow Basic generates actual assembly code that you can read. This helps in the learning process. It is pretty easy to learn & runs tighter & faster code than Arduino code. I love itIf you want something that is also super easy (but is not in visual flow chart format), take a look at Geoff Graham's Micromite:http://geoffg.net/micromite.htmlI also use Realizer by Actum Solutions. It run a graphical interface & produces very tight code, however it costs approx 890 Eurohttp://www.actum.com/realizerLet us know what you eventually decide to use.