We have released version 5 of FlowChart.NET. It contains the following new features:

* Document/View architecture *
FlowChart.NET implements the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern in its new version 5. The MVC design pattern as applied to FlowChart.NET separates the diagram data (model) from its representation to the user (view) and controlling it by the user (controller). According to the MVC design pattern, FlowChart.NET Version 5 provides two new classes instead of the FlowChart class, namely Diagram and DiagramView.

* Support for custom diagram item types *
The FlowChart.NET API has been redesigned to allow for seamless integration of custom node and link types. You can define a custom item type by deriving from DiagramLink or DiagramNode. You could also derive from more specific node types such as ShapeNode or ContainerNode. New items can be added to a diagram by instantiating them and adding them to the Nodes or Links collections. To improve support for custom types, many type-specific methods have been replaced with more generic versions, e.g. FindNode instead of FindBox and FindTable. For more information on the API changes, take a look at the Moving to FlowChart NET 5 section of the help file.

* Containers *
The ContainerNode class implements diagram nodes that can function as containers for other nodes. Containers can be folded to hide their content, and unfolded to show it again. Containers can be nested one within another, without limitation on the depth of nesting.

* Orthogonal graph layout *
OrthogonalLayout is a secondary layout algorithm that can be used to arrange links after an initial node arrangement has already been applied. The orthogonal layout is useful when there are much more links than nodes in a graph. The algorithm strives to achieve the following criteria, while preserving as much of the initial node configuration as possible: links must not overlap; only vertical and horizontal routing lines are used; graph routing is performed with respect to the specified main layout direction; links crossings are minimized; bends are minimized.

* IGraphics interface *
Now all drawing is done through an IGraphics interface, for which the control provides GdiGrahics, SvgGraphics and PdfGraphics implementations. Thus the files created by SvgExporter and PdfExporter can contain custom-drawn elements, which you draw either by handling custom drawing events or by implementing the Draw method in your custom item types.

* API changes *
Conformity with the .NET Framework naming conventions has been improved. For more information on the API changes, take a look at the Moving to FlowChart NET 5 section of the help file.

Registered customers with an active upgrade subscription will receive their upgrades shortly.

A trial version is available for download here:
https://mindfusion.eu/FCNetDemo.zip

Enjoy!



* Note 1 *
FlowChart.NET 5 relies on a new version of MindFusion.Common.dll and it cannot be used side-by-side with the current versions of Planner.NET and MasterChart in the same application. We are going to release updated versions of Planner.NET and MasterChart in the following couple of weeks.

* Note 2 *
The format of FlowChart.NET 5 XML documents has been changed and FlowChart.NET 5 files cannot be loaded by the current versions of FlowChartX, JDiagram, NetDiagram and PocketChart. We are going to release updates for these products in the following few weeks to address that problem.

* Note 3 *
We have received more than a hundred feature requests while working on this release, but as much as we wanted we could not implement them in version 5. We will try to implement all customer-requested features in the following next 5.0.* releases.