Welcome on the homepage of jfig, a 2D graphics and diagram editor based on the FIG file format. The user-interface of jfig is based on xfig, a popular graphics editor for the X11 window system. A short history of the jfig development is included at the bottom of the News page.

The jfig software is written in the Java programming language and can be used on notebooks, PCs, and workstations running Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS X, OS/2, and most versions of Linux and Unix. Due to the support of LaTeX-formatted text objects, jfig and xfig are often used to create diagrams for LaTeX and pdflatex documents. For the current status and frequently asked questions about jfig, see the FAQ.

User-interface

Key points of the xfig (and jfig) user interface are the clever use of a three-button mouse, bindkeys for fast command selection, a magnetic grid for object placement, easy attribute updates, and compound objects.

While the user interface allows for very fast editing, its mode-oriented concept differs from most simple drawing programs for Windows or the Macintosh, and might require some practice to get used to.

Of course, jfig provides less features and effects than state-of-the-art drawing programs like Corel Draw or Illustrator, but the set of object types, object attributes, and editing commands should be sufficient for many types of drawings. Please check the gallery page for some typical figures. Most functions of xfig 3.2.3 are also implemented in jfig, but a few (e.g. embedded Postscript images) are still missing. For good performance, at least a Pentium-III system with 256 MBytes of memory and a recent Java virtual machine should be used.

Software architecture and main applications

• jfig.objects: objects and geometry: rectangle, polyline, splines, text, etc.
• jfig.java2d: high-quality on-screen rendering for the objects
• jfig.canvas: the drawing canvas, rubberbanding, buffering
• jfig.gui: custom user-interface controls and dialow windows
• jfig.commands: one class per editor operation (move-object, create-rectangle, scale-fontsize, etc.)
• jfig.utils: several utility and helper classes

• the jfig graphics editor.
• the jfig bean implements a FIG file viewer as a Swing user-interface control.
• the jfig applet allows you to embed a figure viewer into web pages.
• the presentation viewer to create and present slide-shows consisting of multiple figures.
• the MHG utility for plotting your (2D) data.

• Hades digital systems simulator.

Further information

• examples gallery
• downloads
• documentation