Hi,

Do you need to draw a free-form shape, e.g. as in MSPaint ? Or you just need a straight line segment that does not connect any nodes ?

You could do the former by handling the ArrowCreating and ArrowCreated events and adding a new point to an Arrow object for each mouse movement. You can do the latter by setting AllowUnconnectedArrows = true and hiding the ArrowHead in the InitializeArrow event.

Let me know if you need sample code for that.

Regards,
Stoyan

Hi James,

This code will draw a free-form shape when the boolean flag is set to true.

bool drawLineMode;
Arrow line;

private void fc_MouseDown(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e)
{
  if (drawLineMode)
  {
    // disable the standard FlowChart.NET mouse handling
    fc.Behavior = BehaviorType.DoNothing;

    // start drawing the line
    PointF point = fc.ClientToDoc(new Point(e.X, e.Y));
    line = fc.CreateArrow(point, point);
    line.Style = ArrowStyle.Polyline;
    line.ArrowHead = ArrowHead.None;
    line.Selected = false;
    fc.Capture = true;
  }
}

private void fc_MouseMove(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e)
{
  if (line != null)
  {
    PointF point = fc.ClientToDoc(new Point(e.X, e.Y));

    // setting the number of segments will put all points on a straight line
    // so we remember their old positions
    PointCollection points = line.ControlPoints.Clone();

    // add the new point
    points.Add(point);
    line.SegmentCount = (short)(points.Count - 1);
    line.ControlPoints.Clear();
    line.ControlPoints.AddRange(points);
    }
}

private void fc_MouseUp(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e)
{
  if (line != null)
  {
    // stop drawing the line
    line = null;
    fc.Capture = false;
    fc.Behavior = BehaviorType.Modify;
  }
}
 

Regards,
Stoyan

Dear James,

Set the box HandlesStyle to EasyMove or MoveOnly.

Stoyan