Computer Systems Odessa Corporation, a developer of business applications and gaming software, has announced the release of the US$1,199 ConceptDraw Server 1.0, an application that automatically converts ConceptDraw documents into HTML pages, allowing to view them with a regular Internet browser, through the corporate Intranet or Internet.
ConceptDraw Server is targeted to the people and organizations that use ConceptDraw to create diagrams and drawings, which should be then displayed on a Web site, or viewed by colleagues via Intranet, according to MacTech magazine. When a user attempts to view such document with a browser, the Server converts the document to HTML on the fly.
“There is no more need to manually export a drawing to HTML code any time when changes are made in the ConceptDraw document,” said Valeriy Ryazanov of Computer Systems Odessa. “Files can be modified directly on the server, or modified files can be uploaded on the server. As ConceptDraw is Mac/PC compatible on the file level, it doesn’t matter if the documents were created with the Windows, Mac OS, or Mac OS X version of ConceptDraw. Additionally, ConceptDraw Server allows for password-protected documents (the user is asked for a password to view the document), keeping records of document views and more.”
Alas, ConceptDraw Server requires a Windows-operated computer. However, as mentioned, ConceptDraw itself doesn’t. Gregory Zhukov, president of CS-Odessa, said that ConceptDraw is the first dedicated diagramming program available for Mac OS X. The Carbonized ConceptDraw has been written to take full advantage of the Carbon APIs [application programming interfaces] in Mac OS X, and its other powerful features, like enhanced memory management and multitasking, according to Zhukov.
ConceptDraw is an app that lets users create flowcharts, business diagrams, research layouts, organization schemes, plans and more. It’s cross-platform, so all documents, libraries and templates open on both the Mac and PC.
The program has a set of drawing tools which let users create elementary segments, apply patterns, fills and shadows to objects, reshape, rotate and resize objects on a page. More complex drawings can be created with the help of pre-drawn library objects (over 1600), organized in industry-specific libraries. Each object may contain text, which can be edited with the built-in text processor. ConceptDraw allows for custom programmed objects, described by formulas and mathematic functions. It can process hyperlinks assigned to objects and text and supports most popular graphic formats and HTML export.
ConceptDraw 1.6 Beta requires Mac OS X, or Mac OS 8.6 or later with CarbonLib 1.0.4. To install ConceptDraw 1.6, download the update, unpack the executable file and drop it to the ConceptDraw folder. The folks at CS-Odessa “strongly recommend” that you backup your current copy of ConceptDraw prior to replacing the file.
For details on ConceptDraw Server or ConceptDraw, go to the products’ Web site. Discounts for the former are available for corporate customers who own five or more licenses of ConceptDraw. Plus, you can upload your document to a demonstration ConceptDraw Server to see how it works.