Mapping routes....

bonkey

OK....

I've been asked about the feasability (end effort) for developing a feature in an app I'm working on, and I'm wondering if anyone has any useful libraries, algorithms, or indeed anything at all which might help me a bit.

Here's the problem.

I have a list of Tasks. There is a "Start Task". It can have a regular and alternate successor. Each successor is also a task, which can have regular and alternate successors, until ultimately, you have an End Task, which obviously has no successors.

In theory, the list should form a series of paths from start to finish. However, in practice, users may have set up things incorrectly, creating loops, or items with no predecessors, etc. etc.

In order to help them visualise their work, I want to generate a graphical representation of their paths - ideally in HTML, but anything will do if it comes to that.

So - anyone any thoughts to help me on my way?

Oh - the app is written in Java, but hey - I can translate other languages at need

Cheers.

jc

Hobbes

Are you looking for something like Visio?

bonkey

Ideally I want something I can produce output from programatically which isnt an actual third-party payware application, as I cannot require that the customer has this software in order to use our app...

jc

Inspector Gadget

...have you thought of SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics)? It's a W3C approved XML grammar that can be used to "write" vector graphic images - the results I've had so far with Batik (Java SVG rendering and display engine - http://xml.apache.org/batik - freeware, open source...) are encouraging enough...

Gadget

bonkey

Its more the approach to solving the problem then what graphics library I can use thats the problem....

jc

Inspector Gadget

Is this graphical representation specifically intended to find errors in the "task tree" or is it for general use?

Gadget

Hobbes

http://www.swfm.com/mica.htm

or

http://www.bluej.org/what/what.html

Also

http://www.instantiations.com/ is supposed to be part of the Eclipse tools which is supposed to have something like what you want.

lastly.

http://www.softwareautomation.com/java/index.htm (not free)