Meet the New and Improved Gliffy 3.0 for Atlassian's Confluence (and JIRA)

This is a collaborative guest post with Gliffy CEO Chris Kohlhardt. Announced last month at Atlassian Summit 2010, the latest 3.0 release of Gliffy's web-based diagram editor plugin allows you to seamlessly create visual diagrams within your Atlassian Confluence wiki pages (or JIRA tickets). This post describes the different features within this new release along with some screenshots. On a personal note, as a long time user and fan of Gliffy's diagramming plugin for Confluence wiki, I can personally attest to the importance/value/coolness of this major new plugin release. In it they've managed to nail more than 90% of my personal feature wish list including Drawing Guides, Templates, XML Import/Export and an Improved Connector Line Tool (#1 on my wish list). If you have Confluence and you don't have this plugin, get it. If you already have Gliffy, definitely plan an upgrade to this new release.

The Best Just Got Better

Have you been looking for a powerful online diagramming tool that allows you to collaborate with others in your enterprise wiki? Well, your search is over. Get rid of Visio and take a look at Gliffy, the best web-based diagram editor for Confluence. And now with their new 3.0 release, the best just got (much) better!

Gliffy 3.0 Feature Overview

In case you missed it, Gliffy won the Launchpad Event at the Atlassian Summit after the Gliffy Pirates showed off the latest features shipped in Gliffy 3.0.

Gliffy 3.0 includes a treasure trove of new features that makes it faster and easier to create diagrams. The treasure map, fittingly created with Gliffy, highlights those new features that we'll dig deeper into with this post.

Templates - Get Started in Seconds

With a bundle of pre-built templates, you can get started creating a professional diagram in seconds. Gliffy 3.0 even lets you choose an existing diagram that was previously added to Confluence to use as a template. Copying someone else's slick flow chart in your Confluence intranet could not be easier.

New Shapes - Sitemaps, Venn & Improved Flowchart Shapes

If you are using Confluence for documentation, your docs can now be more engaging with new symbol libraries help make your diagrams look better than ever!

XML Import / Export - Share Diagrams Between JIRA & Confluence

It's now possible to export Gliffy diagrams in an XML format that can be saved to your desktop, shared, or imported in other Gliffy products such as the Gliffy JIRA Plugin or Gliffy Online. If you create a UI wireframe in Confluence, getting it into your bug tracker, JIRA, is now a painless process.

Drawing Guides - Shape Alignment Made Easy

When drawing guides are turned on, it's really easy to line shapes up with other shapes as you draw. This might be the biggest time saver of all!

See Gliffy 3.0 in Action

Like what you see? Give Gliffy a test run on the Confluence Sandbox, or ask you system administrator to install the Gliffy Confluence Plugin in your Confluence installation (or the Gliffy JIRA Plugin in your JIRA installation). If you'd like to see some more feature candy first, here's a brief YouTube video that Chris produced for the recent 3.0 product launch.