The Arrange(Diagram, DiagramItemCollection) overloaded method could help. Pass a collection of the container's children as the second argument to Arrange. However, this will probably move the child nodes out of the container - use the KeepRootPosition and LayoutArea properties provided by some of the layout classes to ensure the child nodes remain inside their container.

I hope that helps,
Stoyan

Ok, I can see we have some code that excludes contained nodes from the layout, which shouldn't be done when using the Arrange(DiagramItemCollection) method. We'll try to fix that and send you an updated version tomorrow.

Stoyan

Hi,

I have the same need. Could I get those updated assemblies as well? I’m currently evaluating FlowChart.NET using the trial version.

Does this update imply that one would have to call Arrange(layout, children) for each ContainerNode, starting with the “leaf” ContainerNode(s).

Thanks,
tobbe

Thanks for the prompt response!

I followed the advice to implement a recursive method. However, child nodes of a container node seems to always get laid out horizontally from left to right in the order they were added to the container. Am I missing something?

Here's a snippet to illustrate (2 nodes in one container):

[code]
[Test]
public void TestSimpleContainerNodeLayout()
{
DiagramForm form = new DiagramForm();
Diagram diagram = form.Diagram;

ContainerNode container = diagram.Factory.CreateContainerNode(0, 0, 0, 0);

ShapeNode nodeA = diagram.Factory.CreateShapeNode(0, 0, 10, 10);
nodeA.Text = "a";
container.Add(nodeA);

ShapeNode nodeB = diagram.Factory.CreateShapeNode(0, 0, 10, 10);
nodeB.Text = "b";
container.Add(nodeB);

diagram.Factory.CreateDiagramLink(nodeB, nodeA);

LayeredLayout layout = new LayeredLayout();
layout.Orientation = MindFusion.Diagramming.Layout.Orientation.Vertical;

DiagramItemCollection childNodes = new DiagramItemCollection();
foreach (DiagramNode childNode in container.SubordinateGroup.AttachedNodes)
{
childNodes.Add(childNode);
}
layout.Arrange(diagram, childNodes);
container.UpdateBounds();

form.ShowDialog();
}
[/code]

Thanks,
tobbe

Hi, I just read about this solution.  It was exactly that I was looking for, but there is a distance between the upper left corner to the first child node.  How can I control the distance from the left and from the top of the container node to the child node.

I have the last evaluation version.

I copied the code from Tobbe and Stoyo. It works fine, but in this sample the node B is separated from the left upper corner of container.  How can I reduce this unnecessary space.

Thanks

Hi, thanks for your response.
The problem of the space between the upper-left corner of the container and the corner of the first child node no change. When I set the Container.Margin = 0; the margin from the bottom-right corner is OK (no space), but the upper-left corner still with a considerable space.

Thanks Stoyo,

It works excellent !!!

ContainerNode.AutoShrink = true;
Adjust the margins.

And,

ContainerNode.MinimumSize= new SizeF(0, 0);
Controls the size of the container node.

Thanks,