Increase in range for scrollbars

This upgrade sees a stretched scrolling range for both vertical and horizontal scrollbars on the Cacoo editor.

We understand that some users encountered issues with the previous limited scrolling range which resulted in the need to move or hide the Stencil and Inspector panels as they were obstructing a portion of the canvas.

With this update, our users can now easily access objects on the edge of the canvas without them being superimposed by the side panels.

Do you have more suggestions for us on how to improve Cacoo? Do not hesitate to let us know!

We plan to continue delivering these small updates in-between major ones and we hope that collectively they will make Cacoo even more enjoyable and effortless to use.

Change in default adjustment value for size & object alignment:
0.1px to 1px.

A mini update we’ve just released concerns a change in the default adjustment value for object width (w) & height (h), as well as its x- & y- coordinates from the Inspector panel.

Prior to this update, the default increment and decrement values were set at 0.1 pixels. In practice, though, we have found that most people are comfortable with the precision of 1 px, and actually favour that over the original 0.1 px that we have set.

Therefore in this update, we’ve redesigned the w, h, x- & y- fields to increase / decrease by 1 px with the click of the cursor or on the arrow keys, to make things more efficient for our users when they are shaping or arranging objects. Of course, decimal values can still be applied, and snap features function as normal.

We hope these little upgrading works will really put more ease in the Cacoo user experience, and we strongly encourage users who have any suggestions for future improvements to drop us a feedback.

In the previous post CacooUp Tokyo & Taipei 2013, we featured some of our Cacoo users who were involved in the events as presenters. One of our Tokyo presenters, Hideki Okubo, has joined us for an interview together with his colleague, Issei Nomiya, at Job-Hub - a web-service provided by Japan-based Pasona Tech Inc., sharing more extensively with us their opinions on Cacoo’s utility in relation to their work.

About Job-Hub

For those who are not familiar with it, Job-Hub is a Japanese online crowd sourcing service that provides recruitment and staffing solutions for your business.

The service provides a highly customizable and tailored platform for job listing and job search. Whether you’re searching for a job as a “Co-worker” or you’re looking to hire someone as a “Client”, Job-Hub allows you to input preferences such as workload, employment availability, and location etc, to ensure that you find the job that well accommodates your lifestyle, or the right personnel who can meet all the prerequisites and demands of your business.

Job-Hub is a commission based service, which means that it is almost entirely free to use. Job-Hub only charges the Client when a hiring contract has been established and completed (10% of the Co-worker’s remuneration). To date, this web-based service has successfully matched jobs with remuneration values between ten thousand to a million yen. Its extensive and thorough service sees its customers through job appointment, procurement, and until all aspects of the employment contract have been secured. Pretty incredible, don’t you think?

In-house Planning & Development Teams

Job-Hub’s development processes are both allocated in-house as well as outsourced. The in-house team consists of two sub-teams: the planning team and the development team. According to Issei, differences between the two groups with regards to their respective roles and responsibilities pose certain challenges to communication flow, which essentially led them to discover Cacoo. They needed a tool that allowed every member from both groups to be able to work on Job-Hub’s screen design, a tool that even individuals without the necessary technical background could tinker with.

After searching around for a suitable tool, they found Cacoo. Issei, who quickly started experimenting with Cacoo, was thoroughly impressed by the simple UI which didn’t require him to pore over manuals and guides to learn. Soon enough, the team was sold on the idea of using Cacoo as a common work tool.

Designing Blueprints and Testing Concepts with Cacoo

Meetings have become more productive as Cacoo allows all team members to view the design blueprint simultaneously, as well as to make comments and execute changes directly onto diagrams in real time. With the design blueprint and its specifications frequently changing, Cacoo enables the team to always have access to the latest, most updated versions.

“The tool is like an extension of my own hand” says Hideki, as Cacoo allows him to annotate his thoughts and the visuals in his head onto diagrams in a flash. Right now, the team is also using Cacoo to develop and organise their plans, experimenting with ideas on the canvas by tiling stencils together, dismantling them, and then gradually forming feasible outcomes.

As for their future plans for Job-Hub, the guys also talked about its expansion through the integration of other web services and are considering the possibility of employing Cacoo API to develop something new for Job-Hub. That would definitely be an exciting collaboration for us at Cacoo.

For now, thank you, Issei and Hideki, for taking time to share with us this great piece of user story with us!

Pasona Tech Inc.  http://www.pasonatech.co.jp/
Provides human resource and staffing solutions in the field of IT and engineering, as well as crowdsourcing services via Job-Hub.

Job-Hub  http://jobhub.jp/
New crowdsourcing platform by Pasona Tech Inc. providing job appointment, procurement, and settlement services.

Last Wednesday, some of us from the Cacoo Team headed over to Tokyo and Taipei for the Cacoo meetup in the respective cities. It wasn't the first time that we've held CacooUp in these two places, but as before, the turn up was fantastic for both cities.

CacooUp Tokyo was held at Puzzle Shibaura, a co-working & event space in Shibaura district. We had a vibrant crowd that joined us for the evening, with people doing design, who does various mockups with wireframes, and developers of different services.

Cacoo creator, Toshitaka Agata, started the evening off with an introduction to the history of Cacoo and its development from past to present. We also had one of our Cacoo developers, Shoji Nakahara, who shared some of the latest updates from Cacoo including Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts, sheet size configuration, table functions, as well as Cacoo's roadmap and future plans.

We invited Hideki Okubo from Persona Tech Inc., and Tomohiro Oono from Startia Lab, to share their experiences as a Cacoo user. Both Hideki and Tomohiro have been using Cacoo heavily for development work (View Hideki's presentation on Slideshare - Japanese). The Cacoo team present at CacooUp Tokyo was thrilled to hear from these guys personally.

Meanwhile across the East China Sea, the Cacoo Team in Taipei saw an equally dynamic crowd that same evening. Just like CacooUp Taipei 2012, the attendance was excellent in this city. This time around, we held CacooUp Taipei at a cosy venue called Goz Cafe.

From the Cacoo Team we had Lillian Lu, Cacoo Community Manager based in Taipei, as well as the head developer of Cacoo, Makoto Hirayama, who shared about Cacoo's history and developments respectively.

Taipei Cacoo users Jeff Hou and Maro also shared their Cacoo experience with us.

Jeff, who is the founder of TEDxYuanZeU, first discovered Cacoo when he was involved in a developers competition a year ago. Jeff and his team made use of Cacoo to illustrate ideas and concepts for the design and development of the software that they were submitting. Post competition, Jeff continued to use Cacoo for many other purposes. On a project trip to Nepal last summer, he used Cacoo objects to create his team's presentation slides. In his opinion, Cacoo has many useful applications beyond diagramming that can really benefit a great variety of users.

Our other user presentation was from Maro, a software developer. For Maro, Cacoo was a refreshing experience for him when he first started. It has a wealth of built-in objects, and supports remote collaboration with its simple URL sharing function. Maro subsequently recommended Cacoo to his co-workers. Its straightforward graphing elements also allow his Marketing department to quickly render their project concepts and deliver them to other departments conveniently.

Well, thank you Taipei users! It was a delight to hear from you guys and we're glad that Cacoo remains a valuable tool for all of you.

CacooUp Tokyo and Taipei were a great experience for the Cacoo Team, and we're looking forward to continuing CacooUp and bringing it to more cities around the globe. Follow us on our dedicated CacooUp site, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter page to get updates on future CacooUps!

Cacoo has been upgraded lately. With this update, the following functioanlities are added.

Sheet size setting is now available on Cacoo

You can now configure sheet sizes via the Property tab on the editing page. We have a preset list of template sizes for print and slide presentation that you can conveniently select from, as well as a customizable option for specific height and width lengths.

In addition, we have removed the 4000 x 4000 pixel limitation on the canvas, which means you can create wireframes for longer web pages now!

Go ahead and try out this new feature today!

Sign in to Cacoo to try out new feature

We are going to add features requested by our users and improve Cacoo even more in the upcoming updates.
Please enjoy using Cacoo and we hope you look forward to seeing continued updates.

CacooUp Southeast Asia Tour has come to an end last Friday on the 22nd of March. While we're sad that the tour has concluded, we are really glad that the expedition was exceptionally rewarding. Being able to meet and mingle with existing Cacoo users, as well as with new users who expressed so much interest in Cacoo, was definitely a fantastic experience for us. Also, a big thank you to all CacooUp volunteers! We couldn't have done it without you guys.

CacooUp Ho Chi Minh @ Zest Bistro Cafe

CacooUp Jakarta @ 1/15 Coffee

CacooUp Bandung @ Vanilla Cafe

CacooUp Manila @ MINT College

CacooUp Kuala Lumpur @ Fluent Space

CacooUp Singapore @ The 3rd Space

We'll be putting up all photos on our Facebook page, so do check back on: http://www.facebook.com/Cacoocom

We look forward to coming back to Southeast Asia to meet up with you folks in the region again really soon. For now, CacooUp will be moving on to Taipei and Tokyo! Interested to join us? Register for a free ticket now on: http://tour.cacoo.com/ !

Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts is very convenient as you can draw diagrams during video conferences.

Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts

Besides, did you know the diagrams created on Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts can be exported to Cacoo.com?
After drawing a first draft on Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts with friends, you can brush it up on Cacoo.com.

Below are the steps to export diagrams from Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts to Cacoo.com.

Steps

Open Cacoo for Google+ Hangouts on Google Hangout.
Press "Export" button on the diagram list page.

Press "Sign up" button on the diaglog.

If you are directed to sign up page, you need to connect existing Cacoo account and Google account. Please click on "Connect to existing Cacoo account" tab and enter your email address and password. If you've signed up with Facebook, Twitter or Google Apps information, please press the button of those services.

Note: If you have connected your Cacoo account with another Google account, first you need to disconnect it.

When you reach the page to show that your Google account and Cacoo account have been successfully connected, close that dialog and Google+ Hangouts page. Reopen the Google+ Hangouts and now you see "Connected to Cacoo.com" on the top of diagram list page.

When you export diagram on Google+ Hangouts, you'll see the diagram in "Owned by me" folder on Cacoo.com.

We are sure you'll love it. Please give it a try!

CacooUp Bangkok, our first CacooUp in the Southeast Asia tour, has concluded on 18th February 2013!

The event was held at Launchpad, a really cool coworking space located at Sethiwan Tower, with really great staff members who were very hospitable and helpful. The luxurious grass carpet, and big orange couches made the event floor the most comfortable ever for everyone.

CacooUp Bangkok went really well. We had a great bunch of attendees who were really warm and interactive. From developers, entrepreneurs to computer engineering college students, the crowd at CacooUp Bangkok was really diverse and very generous with feedback and suggestions.

We had a fantastic user presentation by Ken, who is currently a medical student and an avid Cacoo supporter who also helped to translate Cacoo to the Thai language in 2011. He showed us how he used Cacoo to illustrate his medical diagram for his school projects, as well as how he prepared a railway transit map during his leisure time using Cacoo. It's fun to see how Cacoo can be used in such creative ways. Thanks Ken!

To end the evening, we had our lucky dip, of course, and two lucky winners, Peter & Theeranit, won themselves a Cacoo Plus Plan subscription each.

And we also had 3 other lucky winners who walked home with a CacooUp T-shirt each! "Yay we could do we more T-shirts!". I must say I've never seen anybody more excited about T-shirts than these bunch of people. Well, congratulations guys! Glad you liked the shirt!

All in all, it was a fun and fruitful evening with the folks in Bangkok. Looking forward to going back real soon.

For now, we are preparing for our next destination in the SEA tour. Ho Chi Minh City, see you tomorrow!

The Cacoo Team will be bringing CacooUp to seven South East Asian cities in the month of February and March. Namely, we will be visiting Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Bandung, Makati, Kuala Lumpur as well as Singapore.

This will be an exciting time for us as it is the first time we are touching base with Cacoo users in S.E.A. With a bunch of updates and major developments in 2012, we believe this is a good opportunity to catch up with Cacoo users, learn about how they have been using Cacoo, get feedback and suggestions, and also to share some of our future plans with the users.

If you are in the S.E.A region, don't forget to check our dedicated CacooUp site: http://tour.cacoo.com/ for more details and updates on the tour. We are giving away a one year Plus Plan subscription to two lucky winners at each CacooUp, so do join us and don't miss out on this awesome opportunity! The event is free, but with limited tickets available, so don't forget to book your free ticket today!

CacooUp South East Asia Tour:

Bangkok: 18th Feb 2013

Ho Chi Minh: 21st Feb 2013

Jakarta: 26th Feb 2013

Bandung: 28th Feb 2013

Makati: 8th March 2013

Kuala Lumpur: 14th March 2013

Singapore: 22nd March 2013

We've upgraded Cacoo Enterprise and started to officially offer to the public. Cacoo Enterprise is a packaged version to be installed on private networks.

Cacoo Enterprise is as convenient as Cacoo on the web. You still can draw diagrams easily and share diagrams and collaborate with multiple users simultaneously. Use Cacoo within the closed private network of your corporation or organization to improve security, to reduce the risk of data leakage and to ensure compliance.

For more details about Cacoo Enterprise including its price,
please refer here.