We are currently evaluating the DiagramLite control, to show what is effectively a UML class diagram (generated from some external metadata). We would like to auto arrange the diagram and have the links display separate from each other. When we use the OrthogonalLayout (the only layout that seems to work well in our scenario) all the links overlap and their text becomes unreadable.

Is there something we can do to solve this? We have tried creating our own Anchor pattern and calling ReassignAnchorPoints() on each node after we have created the links, but this does not seem to help our issue.

We do not allow users to rearrange the diagram at the moment, as it is read-only.

Thanks, Dan

I have attached an exported XML from the control (using diagram.SaveToXml(Stream)). We generate the nodes and links in code, but I assume that the export will have all the properties you need?

The custom shape is simply there so that I could use a templated control with bindings to the data context to our model objects - maybe we can do the same thing with a ControlNode?

public class DataTypeNode : ShapeNode {
           public DataTypeNode(Diagram parent) : base(parent) {
                 DefaultStyleKey = typeof (DataTypeNode);
           }

           public DataTypeNode(ShapeNode prototype) : base(prototype) {
                 DefaultStyleKey = typeof (DataTypeNode);
           }

           public DataTypeNode() {
                 DefaultStyleKey = typeof (DataTypeNode);
           }
     }

The diagram XAML is:
<mfd:Diagram x:Name="_modelDiagram" MinWidth="200" MinHeight="200" AutoSnapLinks="False" AutoScroll="True"
                       ShowGrid="False" AutoAlignNodes="False" ShapeBrush="White" LinkBrush="Black" AlignToGrid="False"
                       Behavior="Modify" AllowUnconnectedLinks="False" AllowInplaceEdit="False" RouteLinks="True"
                       DynamicLinks="True" ModificationStart="AutoHandles" LinkCrossings="Arcs" BackBrush="White"
                             FontSize="12" ShapeHandlesStyle="EasyMove" />

With the following set in the code behind constructor:
                 _modelDiagram.AdjustmentHandlesSize = 10;
                 _modelDiagram.DynamicLinks = true;
                 _modelDiagram.LinkStyle = LinkStyle.Cascading;
                 _modelDiagram.RoutingOptions.Anchoring = Anchoring.Reassign;
                 _modelDiagram.RoutingOptions.TriggerRerouting = RerouteLinks.WhenModified;
I have disabled node/link creation and deletion using the *Creating/*Deleting events and args.CancelDrag().

The custom anchor pattern is created like this:
AnchorPattern = new AnchorPattern("DataTypeAnchorPattern");
                 for (var x = 20; x <= 80; x += 10) {
                       AnchorPattern.Points.Add(new AnchorPoint(x, 0, true, true, MarkStyle.Cross));
                       AnchorPattern.Points.Add(new AnchorPoint(x, 100, true, true, MarkStyle.Cross));
                 }
                 for (var y = 20; y <= 80; y += 10) {
                       AnchorPattern.Points.Add(new AnchorPoint(0, y, true, true, MarkStyle.Cross));
                       AnchorPattern.Points.Add(new AnchorPoint(100, y, true, true, MarkStyle.Cross));
                 }

To arrange the diagram I have used:

var layout = new OrthogonalLayout {
     Anchoring = Anchoring.Reassign,
     KeepGroupLayout = true,
     MultipleGraphsPlacement = MultipleGraphsPlacement.VerticalSortDescending,
     Refine = true,
     Padding = 150,
     Margins = new Size(100, 100),
}
layout.Arrange(_diagram)
_diagram.ResizeToFitItems(100);
_diagram.RouteAllLinks();
_diagram.UpdateLayout();

That worked perfectly. Thank you very much for your help.