A Bigger, Badder Creately Turns One!

Its been a year since we came out of Beta and launched Creately to the world. I know its not a long time, but for the team here at Creately, its a moment to be proud of as we pause to think about how far we’ve come since the early days pitching the Creately idea to investors and potential customers almost 3 years ago.

To celebrate, today we’re announcing the biggest, baddest release of the Creately Platform yet. Besides the refreshed interface and new widget for embedding Creately diagrams, this week we unveil the smartest and most flexible diagramming shapes anywhere.

We kicked this off with 3 simple Objects last month – customizable Tables, Accordian Panes and Menu bars, and you guys loved it. So we’ve worked hard to bring you brand new Wireframing shapes, UML shapes and smart shapes for Database design tool.

Rapid UI Mockups

The Wireframe Objects set gets a major make-over with brand new customizable objects for the Browser, Drop Down Menu (shown above), Menu Bar, Tree, Table, Star Rating, Breadcrumb Navigation Panel, and Vertical Slider shapes.

These new shapes can be easily configured from the Properties panel to make them look any way you’d like. For example, a Vertical Slider object lets adjust the position of the slider. But thats just the tip of the iceberg cos most of these new shapes are Text-driven Smart Objects, which means you can change the way they look by simply editing the Text in them.

Let’s take a closer look at the Drop Down Menu (shown above), which is a Text-driven shape. Select the Properties panel and edit the Drop Down Menu data field or simply click on the shape to reveal the underlying data. Making a change to the text immediate changes the look of your Drop Down Menu, so its as easy as typing to add new Menu Items, Disable Menu Items, Submenu Items and more. Not convinced – take it for a test drive.

This is just one example, you can find the full details and examples of our new Wireframing objects here!

The easiest UML Diagrams ever

It gets better! Don’t you wish you could simply type up your UML class and object definitions and automatically create great-looking UML diagrams. With our new Text-driven UML objects – that’s a reality.

Take for example the Device shape above. To create  a UML Deployment Diagram – drag-n-drop this object onto the canvas, double-click on it and update the Text to automatically customise the shape to your specification. It’s really that easy. Give it a go yourself. And it works for  for UML Class, Object, Package and Component diagrams too.

New Smart, Beautiful Database Diagrams

We saved the best for last. You’re going love the new Database Design set. With support for Primary and Secondary key icons, indices and entity relationships, its easy to create a beautiful looking ER or DB diagram really fast. Just try the sample DB template to see the magic.

We are really excited about how simple and easy drawing UI Mockups, DB Diagrams and UML diagrams is going to be with these new updates. Viva la revolucion!

Whats next – Flowchart Objects

Next week, we’ll bring you even more smart Objects to make Creately diagramming a breeze, including updates to the Flowchart set and some spiffy new style templates.

Hope you enjoy these goodies as much as we enjoyed making them.

We are looking forward to a really exciting year. We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible with easy, collaborative diagramming, theres lots more to do! We’ll be starting with some of the most requested features, including real-time collaboration and perhaps even something for those of you who prefer to work offline ;->

Finally, we’d like to thank you for all your support. We’ve come a long way in the last year, but we couldn’t have done it without you, our awesome customers. Here’s to another great year ahead.

And if you’re in the mood – we’re running a Poll for the next big feature to add to Creately – have your say.

Happy Diagramming!

@Creately Team