What software exists for creating visual sitemaps?

Question

What software is there for creating visual sitemaps?

I know of Visio, but that's not that intuitive to use, and Omnigraffle, but that's mac only. Is there any other software that is specifically for creating sitemaps?

Answer 1

PowerMapper

Specifically this product, which will crawl the entire site for you, figure out the structure, generate page thumbnails, and create an HTML map in a variety of map styles. (You can also export as a Google sitemap, etc.)

You can move pages around if the inferred site hierarchy is not to your liking or you want to experiment with different structures.

You can also print out the maps, even if they span multiple pages, so you can build yourself a whiteboard-sized map of a very large site using many sheets of standard paper.

Many of the other suggestions here look like great drawing tools, but seem to rely on you figuring out the structure and building the map yourself, which for anything other than a trivial site sounds like way too much work.

There is a free trial.

[Disclaimer: I have an interest in the company that makes this product.]

Answer 2

FreeMind is a "mind mapping" tool that has many uses, especially representing hierarchical data structures. Cross platform / Java.

Answer 3

There is a very simple web app called Writemaps that does this job really good. It also has some great sharing options.

Answer 4

Graphviz is probably one of the most powerful relationship mapping tools out there. If you're willing to get down and dirty with it, you can have it do almost anything. I've seen some really powerful integrations of it in research applications.

For sitemapping I'd say it'd be relatively little work to get an app running with it to create the graphics you want.

Answer 5

you can try Gliffy which is online. you can also try Dia

Answer 6

Another good tool is MindManager. http://www.mindjet.com/

It's a good tool for brainstorming and layout out site maps.

Answer 7

I'm personally a big fan of Slickmap, but it would probably be used after you have already created the sitemap in another program.

Answer 8

The coolest sitemap visualisations I ever saw were created using something that Xerox research came up with (and then spun off as a separate company). It was called Inxight. Their website now seems to redirect to sap and the hyperbolic tree software they created may well have become part of StarTree (a SAP product by the looks of things).
There is an example of the hyperbolic tree on a Xerox research website. And you could checkout StarTree

Answer 9

If you want some really interesting visuals and interaction take a peak at InfoVis javascript lib. http://thejit.org/demos/

Answer 10

Xmind is a plugin for Eclipse => cross platform

It's a mind mapping software good for brain storming and project planning so it can't be used to get a visual site map automatically from the website code, so it seems that it could be ok for you.

Be aware that, differently from OmniGraffle and Visio, mind mapping is always radial: you start from central concept and develop it on "radial" branches. It can be used like a flowchart in some situations but none of the mind mapping softwares was developed to make flowcharts. I suppose Dia is much better for that purpose as Amudhan said.

Xmind works well, it's easy and very usefull in many situations. There is also a website in which you can share your maps with your team. (Note: you don't need any website account to install and use the Eclipse plugin.)

I wrote a post to speed up the (easy) installation: it's in italian but screenshots and links will help.

Answer 11

Someone above mentioned Graphviz not producing as pretty a result as Omnigraffle. Omnigraffle can import basic dot files (http://www.omnigroup.com/documentation/OmniGraffle4/DOTCommands.html) so you could automate building a simple sitemap with Graphviz and then pretty it up with Omnigraffle.