On 7/25/02 6:42 AM, "Richard Gaskin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Tim writes: > >>>> Does anyone know of any stacks, tutorials for creating dynamic flow charts >>>> in Hyper, Super, Meta-Card or Rev? Any info would be much appreciated. >>> >>> I don't have any examples that can be readily shared (mostly client stuff), >>> but I've buil a few flowchart and concept map tools, so I might be able to >>> provide some pointers on what I've learned. >>> >>> What sort of flowcharting are you looking to facilitate? >>> >>> And by "dynamic", do you mean simpky having connecting lines move as boxes >>> are dragged, or are you looking at something deeper like having those boxes >>> represent process elements in an active system model? >> >> I'm thinking of building an engine that would take a nested text outline >> (delimited by returns and tabs) and create a visual flow chart which would >> be text fields connected by vector lines. I know there's a program called >> Inspiration that can already do that, but I only need some functionality it >> has not all of it. The trickiest part is making sure that no items overlap >> one another. If you have any ideas, I would be very thankful. > > Most of it is just parsing the text and creating objects. The tricky part > is creating a link between boxes. There may be a faster method, but I > usually just store the IDs of the objects being linked in a custom propery > of the line object I use for the link. Then I trap the moveControl message > which triggers a handler that walks through each of the line graphics, gets > those IDs, and sets the points of the lines to the points of the node > objects (I tend to use buttons so can have either text, graphis, or both in > nodes without having to alter code). > > If nature of your user's interactions allow it, using the pointer tool in > your flowchart window will save you a lot of code over mocking up > pointer-tool-like behaviors with the browse tool. > > If you use the pointer tool and you want to prevent the user from being ble > to select line graphics, remember that you can set the cantSelect of any > object to true and it will not be selectable by the pointer tool. > > Hope that helps at least get you started... That's very interesting, but I'm not sure I understand moveControl message part. Also, I gather that you're describing a situation where the user actually moves objects. My intention is simpler: nothing would be up to the user. The flow chart would be created based on the text hierarchy. This would be like a geneological tree. As I said earlier the real challenge for me would be to have it smart enough not to overlap buttons/text fields over one another. Thanks again, -- Tim _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
