Hi

Big thanks for all your help so far Stoyo, we presented the first working alpha version of the system to the client on Friday and they were delighted.

I'm back working on the code now and top of the list is to get the FlowLayout behaving a bit more consistently.

I have been experiencing all sorts of weird behaviour with MainConnectorId links reversing direction and with nodes being drawn on top of one and other, but I figure this must be something to do with how I am using the control.

Today I experimented with making the GroupStartNode and GroupEndNode in each process a standalone node with only a single link with a LogicID set to the MainConnectorId entering or exiting the node. (Previously I had many connectors entering/leaving GroupStartNodes and GroupEndNodes.)

This suddenly seems to make the diagram lay out consistently and nodes linked across lanes all behave well (as long as the nodes they are connecting are not GroupStarts or GroupEnds).

Sooo.... my question is: is this how I should be using the flowlayout to get the best behaviour? I.e. effectively putting a dummy node at either end of the controlflow (i.e. links with logic ID set to MainConnectorID) and then perform all the interlinking between nodes on nodes that aren't marked as GroupStart/GroupEnd in their logic?

Hi

Sorry, probably not making myself clear; I agree totally with what you are saying and have found the same thing, I have already implemented some code that prevent users from
- creating mainconnectors that cross lanes
- and that prevents GroupStart nodes from accepting incoming main connector links

That helped a lot in making the diagram behave consistently.

My point above really was that it seems best to isolate the group start nodes and have as little as possible connecting to them - maybe just an outgoing mainconnector for that set of nodes and possibly an incoming non mainconnector from another lane - as once I connect lots of message lines (i.e. non mainconnectors) to the group start nodes the arrangement of the diagram can go a bit odd.

My question really was is the flowlayout currently designed to expect a standalone groupstart node and then for interconnections between nodes in different lanes to be done in the subsequent (i.e. non group start) nodes?