Today, I thought I would give Google Drawio a try. Seems intuitive and easy, except for saving files. My searches have revealed:

1) If one saves to "browser," those files will be lost whenever cookies are cleared.
" Note that clearing cookies in the browser will delete the diagram, too, which is why using browser for saving diagrams is not recommended. See https://support.draw.io/display/DO/Selecting+Storage for details."

2) If one saves to "device," you won't know where the file is located. What could possible go wrong with that?
"Autosave is not possible, nor is it possible to define the save to directory on the file system, these are security limitation enforced by all mainstream browsers."

The other options of off-site/cloud storage are not acceptable to me. Is there any alternative? If one saves to "device", searches and finds the file, will the same folder/file be used next time and/or is it deeply hidden?

 

If one saves to "device", searches and finds the file, will the same folder/file be used next time and/or is it deeply hidden?

A quick test with a couple of dummy files should answer that. Can you post the result?

 

Hello,

That online tool looks like Dia:
http://dia-installer.de/
Bertus

 

A quick test with a couple of dummy files should answer that. Can you post the result?

I already did that. Saved to browser and saved to device. In neither case does a search of the C (main) or D (data only) drive does Windows find the file. Of course, drawio can find them.

 

I already did that. Saved to browser and saved to device. In neither case does a search of the C (main) or D (data only) drive does Windows find the file. Of course, drawio can find them.

Sounds similar to what SketchUp Web does. The “Save” operation always saves to a cloud location that is inaccessible except through the app. It has an“Export” option that will create a copy on user storage (i.e., drives C: or D: in Windows).

 

Yes, it appears that way, but I don't want to be roped into some variant of cloud storage.

Now that I have voted, I took more time and found it. The "device" files, at least the ones I tested, were in Windows>Users>myname>downloads Found using "properties." I get a message about the file being from another computer and may be blocked, so I unblocked it. Don't know whether that is necessary nor whether that is always where they go.

So far, it is easy to use, but I would not trust it for anything long term as the program may go the same way as the free Sketch Up went.

Thanks for the help. I will update if anything changes.