sjbr@ut-emx.uucp (Sjaak Brinkkemper) (02/13/91)
A week ago I posted a request on more information on software tools
for diagram editors. Upto now eight tools showed up in the responses.
I want to include in the summary some experiences with these tools.
Send your experiences with the following products, listed with their
vendors or creators, to me. Emphasize ease of use, reliability,
installation, editors developed, etc.
Ascent Technology: MetaView
Index Technology: Excelerator - Customizer
Meta Software: MetaDesign and Design/OA
Linton, Stanford University: InterViews, HotDraw and Unidraw
Digital Insight: ROBOCHART
CADWARE: SYLVA
Thomas, University of Washington: XSIM
AT&T: DAG
Additional tools welcomed, of course.
As before reactions via E-mail to me, or follow-up in comp.software-eng.
Thanks, Sjaak
P.S. Please do not to stuff my mailbox with requests for info or summaries.
It'll be on the net soon.
P.P.S. Former posting is given below:
> For a project on new diagrammatic specification techniques we need
> a tool for the creation of diagram editors. Diagram editors support the
> creation and modification of diagrams according to some notational
> convention. They can be found in CASE-tools for modelling Data Flow
> Diagrams, Petri Nets, Entity-Relationship Diagrams, Finite State
> machines and the like.
>
> We are looking for a tool that simplifies the construction of some
> diagram editors.
> Capabilities must include:
>
> - Grammar based diagrammatic conventions
>
> - Support of windowing, mouse input and icon selection
>
> - Simple user interface code generation
>
> Any product in the UNIX or PC world will be considered.
>
> Please respond by E-mail or follow-up in Comp.software-eng. In case
> of sufficient response I will post a summary.
>
> Thanks, Sjaak
>
--
Sjaak Brinkkemper Organizational Computing Lab
MSIS, CBA 5.202 University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA
sjbr@emx.utexas.edu tel.: +1.512.471.8879 / +1.512.892.1423mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) (02/14/91)
I would add to your list two tools: Interactive Development Environments (IDE) sells Software Through Pictures which included a diagram editor called Picture Editor. I've used it as have some of the people who work for me. Reasonably good if you are happy with their pallette of predefined symbols. Pallette contains most of the SA/SD type symbols you might expect. Binary distribution. Reuse in another program subject to permission and possible royalties to IDE. Hewlett-Packard sells a "Motif Graph Widget", but only through special request to their Corvallis Plant. The Graph Widget evolved from original work done by Luis Miguel (now PhD candidate at UC Berkeley) when he worked at HP's Software Methods Lab in Cupertino, CA and was extensively rewritten for Motif by Doug Young (author of Motif Programming book, now at Silicon Graphics) when he was at HP Labs in Palo Alto. Now classified as a "specials" product, it is available only via Corvallis which develops HP's other Motif implementations. The Graph Widget is a full-fledged Motif manager widget which displays nodes (any arbitrary Motif widget or gadget), and arcs (undirected, directed, bi-directed, colored, labeled, variable width, arrow/line widgets). Can display unconnected forests of graphs, including graphs with cycles. Does a great job laying out hierarchical structures, and a good job with many other graphical layouts. Supports edit modes for repositioning nodes, subtrees, deleting and adding new nodes and arcs. Supports linking to arbitrary user specified callbacks. Comes with a set of useful test programs and examples that you can evolve your own diagram editor from. Sold only in SOURCE form. No royalties due on binary products resold by others that reuse the widget. IMHO, a nice, very versatile tool for building applications. Scott McGregor Atherton Technology mcgregor@atherton.com