by Andy Selvig
1. April 2011 17:06
This week we released the beta version of TinyModeler. It's an in-house domain modeling web application that we've made available to the public through a free beta program. Register for your free account and try it out!
What is Domain Modeling?
Here at Tiny Mission, we use domain modeling all the time. It's a way of capturing the high-level data and business requirements of an application in a concise, graphical format. We use domain modeling as the beginning of the application design process. It allows us to effectively communicate between each other and with customers about what the application is supposed to do.
For a more in-depth overview, check out the Wikipedia page.
What is TinyModeler?
There are some domain modeling tools on the market, mostly taking the form of database design or UML class modeling applications. While some of them perform their function well, we never quite found one that fits our needs:
- Easy to use
- Cross-platform (we use Mac, Linux, and Windows at Tiny Mission)
- Doesn't box us into a specific backend implementation (like the SQL Server database designer or XCode's CoreData modeler)
- Doesn't contain the visual and user interface cruft of most UML design tools
As a result, we decided to write our own. TinyModeler is a web application that uses the HTML5 canvas element to allow you to interact with models right in your browser. It was designed from the ground up to be simple and easy to use, yet have the expressiveness that we need.
What's the Future?
Right now TinyModeler is in beta. This mean's there are a couple missing features and some bugs that still need to be worked out. You can register for a free beta account right now that lets you create and edit two models. Once we do a final release, this account type will still be available, along with a paid upgrade that lets you store more models and have access to some advanced features.
shipping-screenshot.png (70.19 kb)
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