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Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
URL: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
At 9:47 AM on May 17, 2007, Matthew Schmidt wrote:
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In this latest Javalobby Expert Presentation, Roman shows you some of the slick things you can do with the NetBeans Visual Library - a custom graph library built with the NetBeans Platform. Useable both with or without the NetBeans IDE, it looks like it provides some pretty serious graphing capabilities.
Watch the whole presentation.
26 replies so far (
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Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
I liked the demo. The library looks really powerful. I already started to think in which project i can use itRe: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
Excellent!Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what's really missing from the Visual library is a 2D scene graph like API. Maybe even a file format to be able to read 2D information (SVG-like)?I like the fact that it lets you add nodes, connect and arrange them but find the lack of general 2D support limiting.
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Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
Very interesting.I already have some code that works with JGraph that implements a simple flow chart view (not for Java classes). Since its not production ready anyway I would consider alternatives, is there a comparison somewhere between JGraph and the visual library?
Thanks.
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
In Eclipse, editors for GUI, UML and other graphical editors use Draw2d and GEF libraries many years. So, now something like this will be available also in Swing.I have not read yet documentation on VL, but demo makes me worry that it may be not so flexible as GEF. In GEF I can implement separate EditPolicy for each object, for example support drops of specific objects into other objects (EditPart's). I see in demo that simple things can be simple implemented, but how about something more complex, like classic GEF example - Logic editor?
SWT/Swing/ GWT Designer - SWT/Swing/GWT GUI designer for Eclipse
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
This has been available for Swing for a while. Not sure how long. But it was previously known as Graph Library. Also, JGraph (as previously mentioned) has been around for years.If Draw2d and GEF is anything like the JFace - then this is tons better and easier. Since it is Swing, you should be able to do what you are saying.
Little Off-Topic: Netbeans docking library
Netbeans has a very nice docking framework since some time. Unfortunately, a few months ago it was too coupled with Netbeans to use it for other projects without having to bundle 50% of the Netbeans framework.Is this Netbeans docking framework better reusable before starting on new frameworks?
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
Concerning questions about Visual Library, my colleague David Kaspar - main developer of Visual Library - will answer them (he is now on vacation so it may take a while).As for the docking framework, as far as I know it can't be used independently at this moment.
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but what's really missing> from the Visual library is a 2D scene graph like API.
> Maybe even a file format to be able to read 2D
> information (SVG-like)?
>
> I like the fact that it lets you add nodes, connect
> and arrange them but find the lack of general 2D
> support limiting.
Visual Library has two layers. The first is shown in the demo - it is about Scene,Widgets,Layout,... The second is about ObjectScene and derived classes. E.g. GraphScene provides a simple nodes-edges model to a scene. See documentation:
http://www.netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-api-visual/org/netbeans/api/visual/widget/doc-files/documentation.html#GraphSupport
Visual Library does not support SVG rendering and unfortunately it even does not support any file-format for (de)serialization. The reason is that there are many graph-oriented models and file-format. E.g. the library supports nodes-edges and nodes-pins-edges models, ... The idea was to create a simple library. The (de)serialization file-format may be added later based on users requirements.
Also currently Visual Library does not contains any complex algorithm for nodes layout (like Sugiyama). Hope it will change soon.
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> Very interesting.>
> I already have some code that works with JGraph that
> implements a simple flow chart view (not for Java
> classes). Since its not production ready anyway I
> would consider alternatives, is there a comparison
> somewhere between JGraph and the visual library?
>
> Thanks.
I do not want to go to detail comparison but:
a) JGraph focuses on the graph-oriented visualization and provides you various graph-oriented operations/layouts.
b) Visual Library is general purpose visualization library and contains graph-oriented visualization as its essential part. Unfortunately it still does not provide sofisticated graph-oriented layout algorithms.
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> In Eclipse, editors for GUI, UML and other graphical> editors use Draw2d and GEF libraries many years. So,
> now something like this will be available also in
> Swing. :-)
>
> I have not read yet documentation on VL, but demo
> makes me worry that it may be not so flexible as GEF.
> In GEF I can implement separate EditPolicy for each
> object, for example support drops of specific objects
> into other objects (EditPart's). I see in demo that
> simple things can be simple implemented, but how
> about something more complex, like classic GEF
> example - Logic editor?
Unfortunately I am not familiar with EditParts in GEF. Anyway Widget is a very low-level piece of a scene and they may be composed to complex ones (like VMDNodeWidget). Therefore I think it may be implemented even right now. If not, you can send us a feature request for it at the mailing list or file it into Issuezilla directly.
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> I do not want to go to detail comparison but: ...Thanks for your reply but I'm still a little confused.
Would you recommend that I spend the time investigating/porting my code which is specifically a flow chart layout?
Would you use visual library for a flow chart?
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> Unfortunately I am not familiar with EditParts in> GEF. Anyway Widget is a very low-level piece of a
> scene and they may be composed to complex ones (like
> VMDNodeWidget). Therefore I think it may be
> implemented even right now. If not, you can send us a
> feature request for it at the mailing list or file it
> into Issuezilla directly.
GEF editing layer above Draw2D. Draw2D has basic Figure, Layer's, layouts and different kind of specific figures such as Polyline, Rectangle, Button, etc. You can easily write your own Figure's.
EditPart is presentation model for your model. I.e. you have EditPartFactory that gets domain object and returns EditPart for it (or null if this object does not have EditPart, i.e. visual presentation). EditPart has following main methods:
1. getFigure() returns draw2d Figure, i.e. visual presentation of EditPart;
2. getModelChildren() returns domain objects that should be displayed inside of Figure of this EditPart (they will be later passed to EditPartFactory);
3. createEditPolicies() - allows EditPart to set one or more "policy", i.e. rules, how different requests can be handled - such as REQ_CREATE (when drop new object from palette), REQ_MOVE (when move existing child EditPart on this EditPart), REQ_RESIZE, etc.
EditPolicy is IMHO very powerful thing (once you understand EditPart's and EditPolicy's :-)) as it allows you create absolutely different behaviour for different "container" EditPart's. For example - support special editing for each layout in GUI builder. EditPolicy is separated from EditPart, so you have separate things in separate classes - children and Figure in EditPart, different response on different requests - in EditPolicy's.
Clean separation between domain model and presentation model is also very important.
Does VL provide such "GEF" like layer or it operates only Figure's/Widget's?
SWT/Swing/ GWT Designer - SWT/Swing/GWT GUI designer for Eclipse
Re: Building Applications With NetBeans Visual Library
> > I do not want to go to detail comparison but:> ...
>
> Thanks for your reply but I'm still a little
> confused.
> Would you recommend that I spend the time
> investigating/porting my code which is specifically a
> flow chart layout?
> Would you use visual library for a flow chart?
Actually I am using the visual library for "Flow Design" in Visual Mobile Designer v2 in NetBeans Mobility Pack 6.0. You can see a screenshot at the home page. Therefore I would recommend you to investigate the library. The current main problem of the library is that it does not contain a complex layout algorithm. If your code contains a flow chart layout, then you have the missing part of the library and therefore it should be feasible to port your application to use the library.