EasySchematic

A drag-and-drop AV signal flow diagram tool for designing and documenting AV system hook-ups.
Built for broadcast, live production, and AV integration workflows.

Try it live → · Documentation → · Developer Reference → · Device Database → · Discord → · Support the project →

Supported by

_{Individual supporters
Sean Curtis}

Features

Canvas & Devices

• 2,000+ device templates drawn from the community device library — fetched live when you're online, with a bundled offline fallback so the app stays usable without a connection
• User templates — save modified devices as reusable templates
• Favorite devices — star templates in the library for quick access; favorites pin to the top and sort first in search
• Template presets — save a device configuration as the project default for that template; new placements auto-apply the preset
• Quick-add — double-click empty canvas to open a search dialog; type to find any device, note, or room and place it instantly
• Signal type filter — narrow device search to templates exposing a chosen signal type, in both the app and the devices site
• Expansion slots — devices with swappable card bays (e.g. router chassis with SDI/HDMI/fiber cards); right-click a slot to swap cards in or out, or build a custom card from scratch
• Swap Device — right-click any device → Swap Device... to replace it with a different model (e.g. AJA Kumo 3232 → 6464, or graduate a placeholder into a real device). A port-mapping dialog auto-suggests where each existing connection lands on the new device, carries over installed expansion cards by slot family, and auto-installs cards to satisfy connections the new chassis only supports via expansion. Direction-crossing remaps require explicit user opt-in; everything is a single undo step.
• Custom devices — design any device from scratch with a guided builder (matrix routers, breakout panels, anything with structured I/O sections)
• Notes & annotations — text annotations on the canvas with rectangle and ellipse shapes
• Rooms — resizable dashed-border containers for grouping devices, with lock/unlock to prevent accidental moves
• Auto-numbering — dropped devices auto-increment (Camera → Camera 1, Camera 2, …)
• Dark mode — toggle light/dark themes from the menu bar; saved automatically, respects OS setting on first visit
• Mobile support — mobile detection with hamburger menu and touch-friendly pan controls
• Physical dimensions — height, width, depth (mm) and weight (kg) fields on devices; drive rack auto-shelf classification, side-view depth conflicts, and per-rack stats
• Auxiliary data block — up to 5 custom lines at the bottom of a device, either free text or bound to device properties (hostname, power, weight, port counts, etc.) via a {{field}} picker that keeps values in sync automatically
• Custom label expansion — embed {{cableId}} and other tokens in device labels for inline cable references
• IO counts — optional badges on devices showing connected/total ports per direction (View Options)
• Hostname — per-device hostname field, feeding into the network report
• Venue-provided gear flag — mark devices as provided by venue; distinguished in the pack list
• Owned Gear library — track an inventory of gear you own; the pack list reports used vs. needed counts so you know what to buy or rent
• Nested slots — expansion cards with their own sub-slots (e.g., SFP/QSFP transceivers in network cards)

Connections

• Click-to-connect — click a source handle, preview line follows cursor, snaps to nearby valid targets (green = valid, red = incompatible signal type), click target to connect or click device body to auto-connect first compatible port
• Drag-to-connect with the same preview/snap/validity behavior
• Network ports connect in any direction — Ethernet, Dante, NDI, and other network signal types allow input-to-input and output-to-output connections
• Smart edge routing — A* pathfinding avoids device crossings with automatic parallel edge nesting
• Auto-route toggle — disable A* routing for lag-free editing on large schematics; click the status chip in the top-right corner
• Manual route editing — right-click a connection to add draggable waypoints; A* routes each leg between waypoints while other connections yield
• Cable length — editable per-connection field, tracked in cable schedule and pack list
• Estimated cable length — auto-populated from room-to-room distances when both endpoints are inside placed rooms; flows into the cable schedule, patch panel schedule, and pack list
• Multicable support — cable accessory templates (snakes, socapex), trunk ports, break-in/break-out devices
• Cable ID labels — auto-assigned with type-prefix naming (e.g. "SDI-1", "HDMI-2") or sequential ("Cable 1", "Cable 2")
• Line jump arcs at connection crossings
• Stubbed connections — render as short stubs with destination labels (device name, optional port, room, page) instead of full routed lines; drag labels to reposition, add intermediate waypoints via right-click. Globally toggle port-name display and page-number mode (cross-page only / always / never), or override per connection.
• Connector mismatch override — force-connect ports with incompatible connectors
• Bare wire compatibility — Phoenix and Terminal Block connectors connect to any connector type without adapter warnings
• 68 signal types, all color-coded (see below)
• Connection line styles — solid, dashed, dotted, or dash-dot per connection or per signal type
• Adapters — automatic adapter insertion between incompatible ports, with direct-attach support, barrels, gender labels, and per-adapter visibility controls

Ports

• Input, output, and bidirectional directions
• Port sections — group related ports under headers
• Drag-and-drop reordering in the device editor
• Add, remove, and rename ports per device
• Port notes — optional notes field per port for documenting specific usage
• Flip ports — move any port to the opposite side of the device for flexible signal flow layouts
• Connector gender — auto-derived from connector type and direction, with per-port overrides for connectors where gender varies (XLR, powerCON, IEC, Cam-Lok, BNC, TRS). The cable schedule adds an M-M or F-F suffix to cables that need two like-gendered plugs, so pack lists reflect what you actually need to buy.
• Patch panels — devices with patch-panel type render as front/rear instead of input/output, with column headers on the canvas; built-in templates for RJ45, BNC, XLR, fiber LC, and TT bantam patch bays in common port counts

Organization

• Snap-to-alignment guides while dragging
• Alignment operations — left, center, right, top, middle, bottom
• Distribution — horizontal/vertical even spacing
• MiniMap and zoom controls
• Grid snapping (20px)
• Room snap guides — rooms and resize handles snap to other rooms' edges/centers with visible alignment guides
• Room styling — right-click a room to set background color, border color, border style, and label size
• Space + drag to pan (Vectorworks-style)
• Subrooms — nested room containers for representing locations within locations (e.g., rack bays inside a control room)
• Equipment-rack rooms — mark a room as an equipment rack via right-click for rack-style rendering on the schematic (separate from the dedicated Rack Builder pages — see below)
• Shift+click toggle selection — add/remove items from selection; Shift+drag for AutoCAD-style directional selection. Crossing (right-to-left) drag also selects connections whose routed paths cross the box.
• Selection filter bar — appears at the bottom of the canvas when 2+ items are selected; chip per entity kind with click-to-solo / Ctrl+click-to-deselect. When connections are in the selection, an Edit N connections… button opens a bulk edit panel for label, line style, direct attach, and label visibility — applied in one undo step.

Signal Types

SDI · HDMI · NDI · Dante · AVB · Analog Audio · Speaker-Level · Bluetooth · AES · AES67 · DMX · MADI · USB · Ethernet · Fiber · DisplayPort · HDBaseT · SRT · ST 2110 · Genlock · Word Clock · GPIO · Contact Closure · RS-422 · Serial · Thunderbolt · Composite · Component Video · S-Video · VGA · DVI · RF · Power · L1 · L2 · L3 · Neutral · Ground · MIDI · Tally · S/PDIF · ADAT · YDIF · Ultranet · AES50 · StageConnect · Art-Net · sACN · IR · Timecode · GigaACE · DX5 · SLink · SoundGrid · fibreACE · dSnake · DX Link · Digilink · eBUS · Control Voltage · Extron Expansion · POTS · GPS · DARS · RTMP · RTSP · MPEG-TS · Custom

Signal color panel — collapsible right sidebar with per-signal color pickers. Custom colors are saved in schematic files and persist across sessions. Reset to defaults anytime.

View options — hide connections by signal type, toggle device type labels, cable labels, and line jumps on/off

Rack Builder

A dedicated rack elevation surface that lives alongside the signal flow. Devices are shared by reference — place a device on a rack page and it stays linked to the same node on the schematic, so connections, ports, and edits are always in sync.

• Multi-page workflow — schematic, rack pages, and print sheets all live in the same file, switched via tabs at the bottom of the canvas
• Rack presets — 42U / 25U / 16U floor racks, 12U / 6U wall mounts, 4U / 8U desktop racks, 45U / 12U open 2-post relay racks, 42U open 4-post — or build a custom rack from rack type + height + depth
• 2-post and 4-post racks — visual distinction with mounting holes (3 per U), inner pseudo-rails, dashed outline for open frame; 2-post rear placement blocked with explanation
• Drag-to-rack — drop devices from the unracked sidebar onto rack U slots with snap-to-U placement and collision detection
• Half-rack support — devices ≈220 mm wide auto-snap to left side; second half-rack lands on right; collisions detected
• Auto-shelf — small non-rack-mountable devices (DI boxes, half-width DSPs, desktop gear) drop onto a slot and atomically create a 1U shelf with the device centered at natural width; oversize devices are rejected with a toast
• Per-template rackForm override — full / half / shelf-only to bypass the size heuristic for edge cases (desktop unit with optional rack ears, etc.)
• Front / rear / side views — front shows face plates with connector icons; rear shows striped occupancy ghosts for front-mounted gear; side view shows depth conflicts and shelf-mounted gear at real depth
• Accessories — shelves, vent panels (with hatching), blank panels, drawers, cable managers, fan units; right-click an empty slot to add
• Face-plate editor — drag connectors to custom positions on a device's front panel with snap-to-grid, multi-select with align (L/CX/R/T/CY/B) and distribute (H/V), custom labels with drag/resize, undo/redo, and reset to auto-layout
• 59 connector types rendered at mm-accurate dimensions with three zoom levels (dots → silhouettes → detailed icons with pin patterns and slot orientations)
• Linked rooms — link a schematic room to a rack so an "Auto-populate" button can propose placements for every device in the room; rack header shows a click-to-jump link badge
• Cross-shelf drag — shelf-mounted devices reposition along a shelf or jump across shelves with absolute canvas-to-mm tracking
• Snap guides during shelf drag — gravity-snap to shelf floor or stack on top of another device
• Right-click context menus for slot, device, accessory, and rack actions
• Cascading delete — removing a device from the schematic clears its rack placement (with toast); deleting a rack frees its devices back to the unracked sidebar

Print Sheets

Paper-based layout pages for composing rack viewports into a printable drawing.

• Paper sizes — Letter, Tabloid, A3, A4, or custom dimensions in inches; landscape or portrait
• Drag rack viewports onto the sheet — front, rear, or side view; same rack can appear multiple times
• Aspect-locked resize by default; hold Shift to escape aspect lock and stretch freely
• Reset size — press R to snap a viewport back to its natural width-for-height aspect
• Multi-select — Shift+click, Ctrl+A, or marquee drag; group resize maintains relative position with uniform scale
• Alignment guides — blue dashed lines snap viewports to other viewports and page margins (3 mm threshold)
• Title block, face label, stats line below each viewport — italic face label, U used / U total, weight, power draw; typography matched pixel-for-pixel to the live rack page
• Vector PDF export — full-fidelity rack drawings with mounting holes, occupancy ghosts (real diagonal stripe pattern), shelf occupants at correct offset and rotation, vent-panel hatching, side-view U gridlines, multi-line device labels, and U-height badges
• Inter Italic font shipped (Latin subset, ~70 KB) so face labels render italic in PDF without depending on system fonts
• Pan and zoom parity with the schematic — trackpad pinch, two-finger pan, middle-click drag, Space+drag

Pack List & Reports

• Pack list — auto-generated bill of materials from your schematic (devices + cables)
• Cable schedule — per-connection wiring report with editable cable IDs, connector info, cable types, signal types, room assignments, and an Est. Length column derived from room positions; fill series support for batch renaming
• Patch panel schedule — per-port inventory of every patch panel in the schematic, including unconnected ports; occupancy badges per panel, group by Panel / Room / Signal / Face; shares cable IDs and estimated lengths with the cable schedule
• Owned Gear library — track inventory of gear you own; the pack list reports used vs. needed counts so a single schematic tells you what to pull from the shop and what to rent or buy
• Print preview — WYSIWYG report editor with interactive header/footer grid, column visibility, grouping, sorting
• Multi-page preview with accurate page breaks, page navigation, zoom, and "Page X of Y" numbering
• Header/footer grid editor — assign fields (show name, venue, date, etc.), static text, logo, or page numbers to cells; merge, resize, add/delete rows and columns via right-click
• Network report — IP address schedule with hostname, IP, VLAN, DHCP, link speed, and PoE draw for all network ports
• Power report — device power draw tracking and distribution load analysis with capacity/status indicators
• CSV export for spreadsheet use
• PDF export matching the preview layout exactly
• Layout preferences saved per-schematic
• BOM cost tracking — unit cost field on devices and cables for budgeting

Community Device Database

• devices.easyschematic.live — browse, search, and submit device templates
• Community submissions — submit new devices or suggest edits to existing templates via magic-link email auth
• Submit from the canvas — right-click any device and choose "Submit to Community" to seed a submission with all the fields you've already filled in, instead of re-entering them on the devices site
• Moderation workflow — submissions are reviewed by moderators before going live
• Reference URLs — branded devices link to manufacturer product pages for spec verification
• Contributor attribution — approved submissions credit the contributor on the device page and the hall of fame
• REST API at api.easyschematic.live backed by Cloudflare D1 (SQLite) — open for read access, no auth required

Public API

If you're building AV tooling and need a structured database of professional audiovisual equipment with port definitions, signal types, and connector types, help yourself:

• GET https://api.easyschematic.live/templates — all device templates
• GET https://api.easyschematic.live/templates/:id — single template with contributor attribution

Responses are JSON, cached for 5 minutes. See the full API reference for additional endpoints.

Save & Export

• Auto-save to browser localStorage
• Cloud storage — create a free account to save up to 10 schematics to the cloud and access them from any browser
• New file template — designate any cloud save as your new-file template; File → New loads it with all devices, title block, and settings pre-filled
• Sharing — generate a shareable link for any cloud-saved schematic
• JSON import/export with schema versioning and automatic migrations
• CSV cable schedule import — import cable schedule spreadsheets to auto-generate schematics with device matching
• Print — configurable paper size (Standard, ISO A0–A4, ANSI, Architectural, or custom dimensions), orientation, scale, title block
• PNG — 4x resolution raster export
• SVG — vector export
• DXF — AutoCAD R2000 (AC1015) export with canvas-faithful visuals and organized layer hierarchy (EasySchematic-Devices, EasySchematic-Connections-SDI, etc.) for Vectorworks, AutoCAD, and similar CAD tools
• Template import/export — export and import user device templates as JSON
• Bulk device-template import — import many templates at once from a JSON or CSV file (e.g. a vendor catalog dump) straight into your user-template library
• Google OAuth — sign in with Google as an alternative to magic-link email
• Offline cloud cache — cloud schematics cached to IndexedDB for offline access

Editing

• Undo/redo — full history
• Copy/paste with offset positioning
• Double-click device to open device editor (label, type, ports, presets); Ctrl+Enter applies and closes from any field
• Double-click canvas to quick-add a device via search dialog
• Preferences — navigation mode (left drag: selection box or pan canvas), scroll wheel configuration, trackpad support with sensitivity sliders, label case display (UPPERCASE / lowercase / Capitalize), via Edit menu
• Right-click room for context menu — edit properties (label, colors, border style) or lock/unlock the room

Getting Started

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser.

Build

npm run build

Output goes to dist/ — deploy as a static site anywhere.

Self-Hosting with Docker

Run EasySchematic locally with Docker:

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

This builds the frontend from source and serves it with nginx. Cloud features (save to cloud, device submissions, sharing) still communicate with the hosted API at api.easyschematic.live — no account or API key required for read access.

Docker commands

Command	Description
make build	Build the Docker image
make up	Start the container (port 8080)
make down	Stop the container
make restart	Restart the container
make logs	Tail container logs
make build-clean	Rebuild with no cache

Or use docker compose directly — the makefile is just a convenience wrapper.

Changing the port

Edit compose.yml and change the first number in the port mapping:

ports:
  - "3000:80"  # now available at localhost:3000

See the Self-Hosting docs for reverse proxy setup and more details.

Install as Desktop App

EasySchematic can be installed as a standalone app that works offline — no download page, no account, no app store. Just visit easyschematic.live and install from your browser:

• Chrome / Edge — click the install icon in the address bar, or Menu → "Install EasySchematic"
• Safari (macOS Sonoma+) — File → Add to Dock
• Safari (iOS / iPadOS) — Share → Add to Home Screen
• Android — the browser will prompt you automatically, or Menu → "Install app"

The installed app opens in its own window without browser chrome, works fully offline, and updates automatically when you're back online. All your schematics are saved locally — nothing is lost if you lose your connection.

Design Principles

1. AV signal flow, nothing else. This is a tool for designing audiovisual systems — not a general diagramming app. Every feature decision starts from "does this serve AV workflows?"

2. Your workflow, your way. Signal colors, display names, device templates, port layouts — customization is a first-class feature. Different shops work differently, and the tool should adapt to you, not the other way around.

3. Simple to start, deep to master. A student can drag devices and draw cables in five minutes. The depth is there when you need it, but it's never in your face on day one.

4. Automate the tedious, not the creative. Smart routing, auto-numbering, and sensible defaults handle the grunt work. When the algorithm gets it wrong, manual overrides put you back in control.

5. Community-built device library. The shared device database grows because users contribute to it. Submit a template, everyone benefits.

Tech Stack

• React 19 + TypeScript
• @xyflow/react v12 — node/edge canvas
• Zustand v5 — state management
• Tailwind CSS v4 — styling
• Vite 8 — build tool

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Click port	Start click-to-connect
Escape	Cancel connection / deselect
Space + drag	Pan canvas
Delete / Backspace	Delete selected
Ctrl+S	Save schematic
Ctrl+O	Open schematic
Ctrl+C	Copy selected
Ctrl+V	Paste
Ctrl+A	Select all
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y	Redo
F9	Toggle Print View
Double-click device	Open device editor
Double-click canvas	Quick-add device search dialog
Double-click room background	Quick-add device inside room
Right-click room	Room context menu (edit properties, lock/unlock)
Right-click connection	Connection context menu (waypoints, stub, override connector mismatch, hide label, reset route)
Ctrl+Shift+S	Save As
Shift+click	Toggle item in selection
Shift+drag	Directional toggle selection
R (on a print sheet)	Reset selected rack viewports to natural aspect
Shift while resizing a print-sheet viewport	Escape aspect lock
Double-click rack label	Rename rack inline

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions, architecture notes, and guidelines.

License

AGPL-3.0