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jsturnbull1

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Writing an app for creating diagrams

I am investigating the possibility of writing an application to aid the creation of diagrams such as flowcharts or UML diagrams. How feasible is this using Visual Basic or Visual C++? I would like to be able to create a toolbox of objects that the user can then select and place on the screen, resize, connect etc

Is this simply a case of using the GDI graphic primitives and manipulating them on screen? How do applications like PowerPoint work?

Any info or pointers to resources would be gratefully received?

Thanks
Jim
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jrspano
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it could be done in vc.  Most graphical apps are done in c.  you would have a harder time in vb, but i guess it could be done.  It depends on what you know.  If you are an expert vb person you might be able to do this now. if you know c well do it in that. If you don't know c you will have a lot of overhead learning it.  Depending on how you want to scale the app will affect it also.  If it is going to be a huge program like visio you will want to do it with c.  vb will break down once you have hundreds of objects on the screen.
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WolfgangKoenig

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jsturnbull1

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Thanks for your replies. However, since my post someone has recommended to me to develop the application in Java. I've no experience of Java (but do know C++) but having looked briefly at its graphical capabilities I feel more confident going down this route rather VB/VC++. Plus I've also the option of looking into VJ++ so my skills in MS Visual languages may not be completely wasted. Plus, like W.Konig's suggestion of TCL/TK, a development in Java will be platform independent.

Thanks Jim
TCL/TK is also platform independent, although Java is also a good decision ...
But i don't know if Java has so great graphical abilities ....
TK thereagainst has the extension BLT which provides diagrams, tables, vectors and some more
The handling of this objects is like Java AWT ...
TCK/TK would keep a lot of developents time ... When Java has the same graphical features (not only window handling an so on) i will say nothing ...

Hope this helps
Wolfgang Koenig