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Layout on Design Surface

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Design Time (Visual Designer & Tools)
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Stuart Hemming
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Stuart Hemming asked on 30 Dec 2010, 08:40 PM
You need to do some work on the algorithm you use for auto layout on the design surface; it's pants!

FWIW, I believe the algorithm should: 
  1. attempt to locate linked objects close to one another
  2. minimize the crossing of lines of association
  3. maximize the distance between points on an object where lines of association enter/leave the object
OK, so this is prolly going to be waaaay down on the list of Things To Do with OA, but still. You're promoting the Visual Designer as Way Forward for model generation so iot would be nice if, out of the box, it actually laid out any model that was even a little bit complex in a way that actually aided the designer/developer in visualising what it is that they are working on.

Just the 2d worth of a visual designer newbie.

-- 
Stuart

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Dimitar Kapitanov
Telerik team
answered on 03 Jan 2011, 09:15 AM
Hi Stuart Hemming,
Currently we use the layout mechanism provided from Microsoft.Diagramming itself . As you might imagine it has no understanding of persistence and domain knowledge, that is why the factors you've mentioned are not taken into account. What I can promise though we will add for Q1 a lot of improvements for working with models: filtering, sorting, colorizing, domain roles. I am not sure we will go the ling way of developing a new layout algorithm for for the built-in diagramming tool. When we feel it is the right moment, we will probably switch the whole designer implementation to custom WPF one based on the best diagramming solutions found in the market - but it will not be anytime soon.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us, and do not hesitate to give us more if required.

Regards,
Dimitar Kapitanov
the Telerik team
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Design Time (Visual Designer & Tools)
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Stuart Hemming
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Dimitar Kapitanov
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