Coding a Flowchart

Question

I'm looking for a professional tool for OSX that using a DSL will allow me to write code for a workflow and will generate a flowchart from the code. Something similar to this but not in-browser and providing a little more functionality (like compressing the chart).

This tool should:

1. Allow input of "code" as text that will influence the generation of the flow chart
2. Provide the ability to draw-to-file a flowchart graph from the code input
3. Provide manual modifications to the flowchart such as moving boxes to different positions, changing box size, changing box shape, etc.

Answer 1

If you are familiar with LaTeX, then I recommend using the TikZ package in a standalone document class. The manual describes the syntax in detail, and you can find flowchart examples here.

Pros (matching your criteria):

1. Allows input of code using any text editor and can be built using your local LaTeX interpretor, or even an online tool
2. The resulting diagram is saved in PostScript/PDF format, which can be converted to high density graphics using ImageMagick convert -density 600x600 flowchart.pdf -quality 100 flowchart.png. This can by typed later in the command line, or added to the document class to output the image in a single step \documentclass[convert={density=600,outext=.png}]{standalone}.
3. Provides control over the size and shape of the nodes using \tikzstyle{} and the ability to fine tune positions by the millimeter (or your preferred unit, pt for example). You can also save your own style definitions in a separate file and \input{} it into several documents, instead of copying or typing them all over again.

Cons:

1. Might take time to learn if you are new to LaTeX