Decent Auto Layout Option

[dgharrison]

Has anyone written a VB script or is there a call in EA you could use to automatically layout a diagram in a decent manner?

Currently i don't think i can call 'Layout Diagram' from VB but even if i could all that seems to do is lay things out in a straight line which is terrible if you have more than say 10 links.

Ideally i like something that fans them out in archs in alphabetical order or something like that.

Surely someone has tackeled this before...

[thomaskilian]

I remember a post that there's a method in the COM. But I'm too lazy to search for it now...

[«Midnight»]

I've had no trouble calling the documented layout methods from VB, or any COM client for that matter. The layout options are poorly (read "not") documented. You'll have to play with them a bit.

As for the level of documentation, and the visual appeal of the end result, these parallel what you get for the UI. Not great in either case, and of course they could use work. However, these limitations are not specific to the API.

As far as writing a new, improved, layout system, I encourage the poster to go right ahead. Algorithms of this type are well known, but poorly documented, and we'd all welcome improvements I'm sure. In fact it would be nice if there were some substantial breakthrough in this area. Anything better than what's out there now is almost certain to be worth a PhD.

IMHO this area could definitely use some improvement, but given my 'druthers' I'd rather Sparx put the necessary brainpower into other areas first.