Paul, What you're looking to do is not easy. It's a formal area of study called "graph layout" and is pretty hairy. I spend a bunch of time looking at solutions/packages/source code for doing this and in the end we decided it was far better to purchase a component.
You may want to look at how RMTrack does it's workflow diagram. You can setup a demo at www.rmtrack.com. The bulk of the heavy lifting of the diagram is done by a product called AddFlow from Lassalle Technologies (http://www.lassalle.com). They have a new .net version... but I haven't tried it (stilling using the ActiveX version). The diagram component is very flexible... but you may need to do some work to tweak it just right (we added a bunch of things like toolbar support, improved mouse over effects, context sensitive menus, and so forth). The auto layout feature(s) can be purchased separately. That's a bit of a disappointment... but they where still reasonably priced. There are competing products. Go from Northerwoods (www.nwoods.com) is reasonably priced... but we didn't like the look and feel as much as AddFlow. Also Tom Sawyer (www.tomsawyer.com) offers a toolkit for this... but it's expensive (when I check it was royalty based and about 5k, but they have come up with a new pricing scheme and they claim it is less expensive). Also one or two application I've seen using it were pretty horrendous (more likely the fault of the applications than the tool... but still... they were really really bad). I think Tom Sawyer may be better suited to very very large diagrams (+1000 nodes)... but I don't really know :) Good luck, Rob MacFadyen -- RMTrack a great bug tracking tool! Fully customizable, automated workflow, e-mail notification, import utility, and much much more. Setup a demo at www.rmtrack.com (version 1.2.2 now available!) > -----Original Message----- > From: Moderated discussion of advanced .NET topics. > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Paul Stevens > Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 6:28 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [ADVANCED-DOTNET] Linking Controls With Lines > > > I posted this question on the win forms list a few days ago I did get some > replies (Thanks Richard and others who replied) but I didn't get quite what > I was looking for, let me explain. > > I have been working on an interface where users link objects together with > lines by dragging one object and dropping it onto of another, have methods > that allow me to select lines and do stuff with them such as remove set > properties etc, now drawing a line from point a to point b is no problem, I > have created a few procedures that draw either straight or angled lines, the > angled lines are drawn using different parameters based on how far apart the > source and destination controls are etc, however I haven't yet been able to > create a (Quick) way to draw lines that crawl around existing objects etc on > the screen. Has anyone else done this kind of thing and if so, are there > good code samples out there or maybe even someone willing to share some cool > code he/she wants to show off, some of the code I have done in this regard > is very slow and cumbersome, I think maybe it's just my approach that's > wrong > Paul Stevens > Analyst Developer > MultiChoice Africa > Cellular: * +27 (0) 82 413 3171 > Phone: * +27 (0) 11 289 3576 > Fax: * +27 (0) 82 131 413 3171 > Mail: * [EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================== This list is hosted by DevelopMentor� http://www.develop.com NEW! ASP.NET courses you may be interested in: 2 Days of ASP.NET, 29 Sept 2003, in Redmond http://www.develop.com/courses/2daspdotnet Guerrilla ASP.NET, 13 Oct 2003, in Boston http://www.develop.com/courses/gaspdotnet View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://discuss.develop.com
