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x-fgi
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Graphic Enhancement in "Selection"
Sep 1st, 2009 at 1:09pm
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Hi,
I'm working with your Flowchartx product and I found
a couple of thing that I can't do because I can't draw on Flowchart Canvas...
So I suggest you these two things :

The first is that there are no way to change the behaviour of the selected objecs... that is: when I select a Box or an Arrow I can only see the small squares to indicate the current selection.
It would be nice if the selection can be also rapresented in different shapes...
the easiest shape can be a simple rectangle drawn around the box, another better shape can be a small polyline drawn around the box and following the box shape and the box caption, or around the arrow (drawn following the shape of the arrow, more or less like the shadow).

the color and the thickness of the line should be user defined (...and, why not, also the distance from the box).
A nice thing could be that line property(color, thickness and line type) can be defined as default at Flowchart level, and redefined at object level, so that in multiple selection I can even realize Group of selection Grin

The very best should be that the user can define his own defined draw routine....but I suppose this is not so easy to implement...or not?


===============================

The second enhancement is similar to the selection but done for gouping items together with a ...how we can call it ? "Bubble area....?"

that is: I suggest to add a property that can set visible or invisible the bubble, and a property at object level ( i.e. for box and arrows) to define the group to witch each item belongs to.
Another property should define the bubble area property, it should be a separate object, so multtiple area can be defined.

The bubble object should contain , Pen and Brush color, fill, type...

When visible, the bubbles are drawn around all boxes and arrows sharing the same "Bubble Group".
The bubble shape can be a circle or a square...
if the Bubble Radius is big enougth the boubble of the same group can merge togheter by forming a solid area containig all the objects of the same group.

The area fill can be drawn semi-transparent to let the original shape of each node to be always visible....

for example : suppe to have a diagram of people connected toghether with arrows... people can be male ( goup1) or female( group 2) ... when I set bubble group1 visible, the male boxes are sorrounded by a blu area,
when I set bubble group2 visible the female boxed are sorrounded by a pink area

wouldn't it be nice? Cheesy
Franco
« Last Edit: Sep 1st, 2009 at 2:21pm by x-fgi »  

Franco
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Stoyo
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Re: Graphic Enhancement in "Selection"
Reply #1 - Sep 1st, 2009 at 5:48pm
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Wow 8)

I suppose you could implement the selection behavior with some custom drawing. In Classic graphics mode the CustomDraw event gives you a Windows device-context object (HDC) which you could draw upon using the Win32 API functions. In GdiPlus mode you get a pointer to GDI+ Graphics object. However CustomDraw is available only for Box objects at this time.

As for the bubble stuff, you could create an actual Box instance, set its shape to Ellipse and call CreateGroup() with that box as argument. Then use the group's Attach methods to add child items. The group's main box does not update its size automatically, so you will need to calculate that from the position of the child boxes. With this approach you will be able to customize the bubble appearance by setting the properties of the background box, and that will also let your users move the whole group by selecting and moving that box.

I suppose we could implement some built-in support for these features in the next few releases.

Stoyan
  
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Re: Graphic Enhancement in "Selection"
Reply #2 - Sep 2nd, 2009 at 8:30am
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Smiley
Hi Stoyo,
Thank you for reply.
about the ability to draw:
I will try to do it with CustomDraw, ..."Box object drawing" could be enough as first approach of my problem.....of course, I also need to draw Arrows... is there any possibility to hope customdraw become available in future? Wink
Anyway, it would be not so easy to exactly replicate arrows' drawing path when arrow's shape is not a simple straight line!! Undecided

About Bubble......
Ellipse shape whad been my first thought... but how I can merge shapes togeter?
this is more or less what I was intended for "bubble"


  

Franco
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Re: Graphic Enhancement in "Selection"
Reply #3 - Sep 2nd, 2009 at 8:51am
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Hi Franco,

We'll add some additional custom draw events next week. It looks as if the bubble could be implemented by setting the CustomDraw property to cdShadow, and then you could render the bubble shape in place of the items shadows? Another possibility is for us to implement this as a new shadow style, where the shadows are drawn scaled rather than with the same size as the objects that cast them?

Stoyan
  
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Re: Graphic Enhancement in "Selection"
Reply #4 - Sep 2nd, 2009 at 9:34am
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Hi Stoyo,
Yes, Shadow style could be the easiest approach for you.....and also for me Wink

the best for boxes would be to have the possibility to see Shadow without the shape....i.e. shadow visible = true, shape visible= false...
Couldn't this be done by adding enumeration style to shadow style....could it be?
  

Franco
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