We have released FlowChart.NET version 4.3, which is the last planned version for the FlowChart.NET 4.* series. A list of all new features can be found at the bottom of this page.

Registered customers will receive their upgrades shortly. An evaluation copy is now available for download here:

https://mindfusion.eu/FCNetDemo.zip

Enjoy!

What's new in version 4.3

*** Shape libraries ***
The ShapeDesigner tool lets you save a set of shape definitions into an XML file. The whole set can be loaded using the ShapeLibrary class.

*** Lanes ***
The lane grid lets you emphasize the relationship between a group of diagram items by displaying them in a distinct lane or cell within the grid. To display the lane grid, set the EnableLanes property of the FlowChart class to true. In order to customize the grid, set the various attribute exposed by the LaneGrid property, which lets you specify the number of rows and columns, add headers, customize the cell appearance, etc. The new Lanes sample project uses the lane grid to let users draw Gantt charts.

*** ShapeListBox ***
The ShapeListBox control can display a set of icons representing FlowChart.NET shapes, along with their identifiers. It allows creating shapes on the FlowChart.NET drawing surface via drag-and-drop.

*** A new brush type ***
The PathGradientBrush class represents a brush that fills the interior of a graphics path object with a gradient. A shape filled with this brush has the CenterPoint painted in CenterColor and the colors grade into SurroundingColor towards the shape borders.

*** Mouse button mapping ***
The MouseButtonAction enumeration has been extended and renamed to MouseButtonActions. Now it has two new members, Cancel and Select, that let you assign mouse buttons to canceling the current drawing operation and to drawing a multiple selection rectangle. The members can be combined through a bitwise OR operation. In that case FlowChart.NET will choose which of the actions to start according to the context. A new RightButtonActions property has been added to let you map the right button to the available actions. The MiddleButtonAction property has been renamed to MiddleButtonActions.

*** More precise hit-testing for multiple selection ***
In older versions, items were included in multiple selection when the items’ bounding rectangles intersected the selection rectangle. That could lead to arrows with more than one segments or boxes with irregular shapes being included in the selection without the selection rectangle actually touching them. Now items are hit-tested using their exact outlines, instead of only their bounding rectangles.

*** AnchorPattern changes ***
~ The Register method of the AnchorPattern class has been deprecated. Now shared AnchorPattern objects should be created by assigning a string identifier through one of their constructors, following the same pattern as for the ShapeTemplate class. The string identifier of an anchor pattern can be accessed through the Id property. The static FromId method lets you find the anchor pattern object by its id.
~ The XML diagram format has been extended so that it includes an <Anchors> section describing all anchor patterns used in a diagram.
~ AnchorPoint coordinates are now float numbers, allowing better precision of anchor definitions than in older versions.

*** API changes ***
~ The default value of the AutoSizeDoc property has been changed to RightAndDown.
~ The InterpolationColor property of LinearGradientBrush has been renamed to InterpolationColors.
~ The RotateContents property has been removed. Now there are two independent properties that enable rotation of the Text and Image of a box, called respectively RotateImage and RotateText.

*** MindFusion.Common.dll ***
The new MindFusion.Common.dll provides commonly used classes for all MindFusion products. It will be automatically added to the project references when adding FlowChart.NET to a project for the first time. You must manually add it to existing projects that already use FlowChart.NET.

*** Miscellaneous ***
~ The VisioExporter component no longer creates temporary files when exporting images, but uses memory streams. Thus no security permissions to access the harddisk for writing are required.
~ The PdfExporter component now supports the Cell.Brush property.
~ Shared images used in more than one object are saved/loaded only once now during binary serialization. That saves some disk space.
~ Base64 encoding is now used when serializing images into XML files.
~ The CancelDrag() method allows cancelling drawing the item for all *Creating and *Modifying events.
~ The *Selecting events are now also raised while drawing a multiple-selection rectangle.
~ GridOffsetX and GridOffsetY allow specifying the horizontal and vertical offset of the alignment grid points.
~ The DecorationHitTesting property specifies whether decoration lines should be considered when hit-testing.
~ The new Font property of the Cell class lets you assign a distinct font to each cell of a table.
~ Partial layouting via the layouts' Arrange(ChartObject[]) methods