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How about a graph editor, such as yEd?

Take a map image of your state and overlay it with a yEd diagram, click on nodes to bring you to a more detailed (but localized) sub-mapof the local graph.

(If you do this, consider using a dedicated huge, transparent display (such as this one) just for the awesome factor.)

Visio has long been one of the programs for which there is no satisfying substitute.

I don't know if it handles all of Visio's use-cases, but I've been using yEd Graph Editor with great success for all my diagramming needs.

I've found yEd to be quite useful as well.

I wonder where we can take a look at this app. Anybody know?

You can find yEd at http://www.yworks.com./ You can find Graphviz at http://www.graphviz.org./

As the subject says: yed does not only allow you to lay the connections (I don't like the term "edges". It's counter-intuitive to me.) so that they do not cross
  It allows you do set a buttload of parameters and use different algorithms like organic, hierarchical, orthogonal, circle, tree for the nodes and the connections. You can even make it change the laying of connections separately.
It's a fairly mature program too.

Inkscape is a vector editor, and doesn't support automatic layout when you move items around. At least that I know of, if you can tell me how, you'll make me very happy. That said, I use Inkscape for making presentation graphics in Linux, but it's not really a Visio replacement.

Reddit had a thread on this topic a few months ago, which you can find here: AskReddit: What is the best Visio replacement?

Some of the better suggestions were:

• OmniGraffle - Great, but Apple only
• Gliffy
• Project Draw
• yEd
• OpenOffice.org Draw
• Dia

I have recently been using yEd for quick visualizations. It's a free (beer) java app, similar to graphviz in concept -- you just provide a logical graph and it figures out how best to display it. What's nice is that it's an interactive program, so it makes it easy to play around with different layout algorithms and tweak the settings until you find one that works for your graph.

It's Java and it launches via webstart, so it's very easy to get running on any system.

If I really need visio, I run it inside a vmware session but that is a bit overkill.

It all depends on what you use visio for anyway. Most generic diagramming can be done with something like yEd http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html - it's not open source but it's free and very nice. And it's java so you can also use it on your XP box :)

For UML sequence diagrams, look at SD-edit http://sdedit.sourceforge.net/. Also java, open source and very quick to use. Trust me, you'll never want to use visio again for sequence diagrams.

For generic UML modelling and reverse engineering, maybe you could take a look at BOUML http://bouml.free.fr/

And there's allways Gliffy http://www.gliffy.com/ which is completely server-side. Be careful though, the free version stores your documents for all the world to see. If you don't mind your drawings being stored on somebody else's server, the $5 a month for the paid version (that also does private documents and unlimited number of drawings) seems reasonable.

Openoffice Draw also isn't too bad as a final alternative perhaps.

As for dia, it seems to have a lot of potential but for now text placement for instance is very un-intuitive (try adding some text to an arrow, you have to connect it manually and the positioning of the text is very awkward). These guys really need to step it up, right now it compares to a really old version of Visio and even then it isn't half as easy to use..

How could someone who is so right about SWT (Swing, like democracy, isn't perfect but it is better than the alternatives) be so wrong about IDEs :-) Eclipse is free, cross-platform, and much better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Now that's damning by faint praise. "Better than JBuilder"? Joy.

If you've never tried jEdit, perhaps you can see your way clear to forgiving me for avoiding such sharp sticks in the eye. If you can see past the stick, that is. :-)

I don't mind feauture bloat so much if it stays out of my way. But in Eclipse it doesn't--IMHO Eclipse lacks the "conceptual integrity" we've known is important since before Brooks gave it a name in "The Mythical Man-Month". "It's free" isn't a reason to turn a blind eye (maybe the one with the stick) to its flaws. Also, Eclipse *is* an SWT app, and inherits all *those* problems.

My own toolset is: jEdit for tactical use, with IntelliJ IDEA as a strategic WMD, suitable for surgical strikes on large legacy code bases while causing limited collateral damage. Add to this SQuirreL for mucking about in the DBMS. yEd is handy for diagramming things. All kinds of things.

In fact I usually keep a copy of jEdit running *alongside* IDEA to use as a lightweight file system browser, Beanshell framework, and GUI tool for the grepping of things ungrokable by IDEA. All these tools will run in any Java GUI environment without sweating how SWT will run on Platform X. And they're all free, (except for IDEA...if you're willing to run beta code, you can get that free too).

"Grepping the ungrokable"... I like the sound of that. :-)

As big a fan as I am of open source software, Eclipsoids drive me batty. Some software is worth buying if you have the cash available, and I think IDEA is a perfect example.

But the original poster specified "programming as a hobby", and jEdit should be perfect for that.

I think the visio-like editor yEd is a very good java-application, you should try it!

yEd is pretty good. It builds off the yFiles library.

The simplest version of cracking a Java program is using JAD to decompile the source, making a few changes in source (like changing the license check to always return "full enterprise version" instead of "time-limited demo"), compiling your altered class, replacing it the JAR, and running the app.

Most obfuscators will make this track impossible, by doing things like using language keywords (while, for, if, and so on) for class/method/variable names, so that when you decompile the thing it cannot be recompiled. They also mix stuff around in the classfile enough so that figuring out what method is doing what becomes non-trivial -- stupid things mostly (like naming methods l1(), ll(), I1(), Il(), etc.), plus a few tricks to stop JAD from fully decompiling the class.

Enough of these little things add up to make the work involved in altering the decompiled class excessive and difficult.

The more sophisticated Java cracker doesn't bother. They decompile enough source to get their bearings, then edit the appropriate bytecode directly, with a classfile editor. Fortunately, most people with this level of experience can just pay for the frickin software they want.

I'm actually not obfuscating my Java code yet, but I'm going to start... it's just too easy to crack Java code without it. yGuard obfuscator is pretty decent LGPL one, that can run as an Ant task.

Mostly for the space savings, reduces the overall size of the jar and makes applets load faster. Wouldn't bother for server side code, but I always add an obfuscation task to my ant build script for applets. Check out the yguard obfucator.

Probably really useful for j2me stuff, and web start apps too.