Thoughts on Google Drive Drawing

 

Recently, for my upcoming game about tele-donations I have been creating concept maps and user interface models (as seen above) in Google Drive. Because I feel as though I have used Google Drive's Drawing application enough to give anyone a headache I feel as though I should write a little about some of the cool features, tips, tricks, and what Google could improve on.

Google Drive's Drawing application seems to be made for making concept maps though I have not seen it say that it is explicitly for any other use or for general use, so I have been trying to possibly bend it for my use. Drawing allows the user to add different picture and text objects (graphs, text, a selection of clip art, word art, hyperlinks, and picture files) to a resizable field of space. For the most part, what I have been making are charts for the branching dialogue trees that I will be programing into my game so the programming of the game will go smoother because I will have a set plan.



In my graphs each line of dialogue and each response are represented by different blocks with text with the respective dialogue in each box. These boxes are then connected by different colored lines with arrows. One thing that I enjoy about Google Drive Drawing is that the different ends of the lines can be magnetically connected to the different text and picture objects. This is cool because after magnetically connecting two objects by a line the user can drag either connected object around the field and still be connected. This has been convenient to me because the maps that I have been making have been very complicated. I also enjoy the selection of clipart and word art that they have available; though limited, they are well designed and they satisfy my needs.

As something that I do not think is used very professionally it has its flaws. One of the obstacles that I have been encountering is that it seems to give each line a entire invisible rectangle to select to just select a line based on the size and direction of the line. This is annoying because I frequently end up selecting lines that are no where near the object that I want to select. Another main problem that I run into is the clipboard for copying and pasting information. Sometimes I will want to copy part of a graph from one Drawing document to another. During the copy the graphical information is usually lost. This is probably due to it being an in-browser application, but I feel like Google can find a way around it hopefully in a near future update.

All in all, Google Drive's Drawing application is very useful. Like the other Google Drive applications I enjoy the ability to have cloud storage, multiple user connectivity for collaboration or for viewing purposes, and the close quality to Microsoft Office. With a few more additions I am sure Microsoft Office will have a potential run for their money.