Diagrammr

[Update November 2011: The site is still there and accepts sentences, but it no longer makes diagrams from the text.]

Have you noticed the serious shortage of ‘e’s recently?  Here’s another site, hit hard by the e drought: Diagrammr

What it does is intriguing.  Key in a series of propositions and, if they are sensibly related, it will produce a concept map for you.  Here’s an example:

(click to see full size)

Click here to visit the full concept map in diagrammr itself.   You’ll see that the propositions all follow the form “concept1 linking phrase concept2“.  If a concept requires two or more words, you’ll need to join them with underscores – common_mindmaps  for example.

The placement of the linking phrases could be improved – you can’t always see straight away which relationship line a phrase relates to – but I can see that placement over the middle of the line with elegant wordwrap would not be trivial.

You have to decide on your concepts rather carefully to get the full benefit of diagrammr’s atomatic linking.  Take the last proposition: Tony_Buzan would probably not approve of maps output by diagrammr.  Maps-output-by-diagrammr is really the concept here, but then we would not have an automatic link to diagrammr.  There are other ways round this, but I include it as an example.

Diagrammr can also make another form of diagram – click ‘change layout’ under the map.  It takes the same input and produces something like this:

This is something like a sequence diagram (can anyone tell me what it’s really called?)   For this to be workable, you need to keep your proposition names short or they overlap across the title bar.

I’m distrustful of web sites holding my data, so I cut and pasted a backup copy of the propositions to a text file on my computer when I made the map yesterday.  When I went back today, it had reverted to an earlier version – excluding roughly the second half of the propositions.  So take the same precaution if you do any useful work here!  I should mention that there are no accounts, no login, and no apparent protection against vandalism either.

Roy

If you want the detail, here are the propositions that generated the map:
informationmaps include mindmaps; informationmaps include concept_maps; informationmaps include spidergrams; informationmaps include argument_maps; mindmaps include Buzan_mindmaps; mindmaps include common_mindmaps; common_mindmaps are similar to spidergrams; Buzan_mindmaps follow guidelines; common_mindmaps are more loosely defined than Buzan_mindmaps; informationmaps can be used to store information; informationmaps can be used to point to computer_files; informationmaps can help generate ideas; mindmaps can help organize thoughts; concept_maps need not be hierarchical; mindmaps follow a tree_structure; concept_maps generally have linking_phrases; linking_phrases are not well placed in diagrammr; concept_maps help demonstrate understanding; guidelines were set by Tony_Buzan; Tony_Buzan would probably not approve of maps output by diagrammr