I am a noob in Mindfusion diagram control.  I am not sure which type of node that I need to start with as my base node for inheriting:  compositenode or shapenode (or other type?).

I need specific shapes:  upside down double lined triangles, double lined circles, double lined squares.  Each shape has specific ENTER and EXIT ports on either side.  I need specific properties stored within each object that are pulled from a database.

The real challenge is:  I must be able to save to a memory stream (as a BLOB or XML storage inside the SQL Server).

How can I do this using Mindfusion Diagram? 

I have went through the samples and read through Help and watched some tutorials.  I have a test project put together but it is not saving and loading the diagram - I am using simple ShapeNodes. It saves and loads but the lines and objects are messed up or not there anymore.

Other requirements:  finding all connected nodes entering and exiting each node.  Searching all node connections and pulling path mappings from source to destination nodes.

I need to get a test example working before we buy the license so does anyone have a suggestion on how to best approach this implementation?

Quote:


First consider storing just database records' ID in nodes' Id or Tag property. If you need all record values stored in node, you could create struct for them -

[Serializable]
class ExtraProps
{
	public string Prop1 { get; set; };
	public int Props2 { get; set; };
	...
} 

and assign its instances to Tag or Id properties. That's shown e.g. in SiteMap sample project. Tag/Id struct is serialized automatically in binary format. If you need it saved in XML, you will need to handle Diagram.SerializeTag event handler.

Otherwise if you need your properties directly in node class, then you can follow approach from IconNodes example -

public class IconNode : DiagramNode
{
	protected override void SaveTo(System.IO.BinaryWriter writer, PersistContext ctx)
	{
		base.SaveTo(writer, ctx);

		// Save the label using the standard .NET BinaryWriter
		writer.Write(label);

		// Save the image using the MindFusion.Diagramming built-in image saving code,
		// which stores the contents of shared images only once.
		ctx.SaveImage(icon);
	}

	protected override void LoadFrom(System.IO.BinaryReader reader, PersistContext ctx)
	{
		base.LoadFrom(reader, ctx);

		label = reader.ReadString();
		icon = ctx.LoadImage();
	}

	Image icon;
	string label;
}

// Enable serialization of IconNode instances
Diagram.RegisterItemClass(typeof(IconNode), "IconNode", 100);
 

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If you already use custom types, make sure you call the RegisterItemClass method. If it's still not working, please attach the test project.

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You can find connected nodes through OutgoingLinks and IncomingLinks collections -

using System.Linq;
var exitingNodes = node.OutgoingLinks.
    Select(l => l.Destination); 

See the PathFinder class for finding paths.

Regards,
Slavcho

Quote:


Ports (AnchorPattern/Point objects) are defined through base DiagramNode. CompositeNode vs ShapeNode is mostly a matter of node's contents - since you only need to display geometric shapes, ShapeNode should be enough.

Quote:


You should derive from ShapeNode to inherit shape drawing. That DiagramNode example was only to show the serialization methods (coming from IconNodes sample project where it's not drawing shapes).

Regards,
Slavcho