I want to display some data relations (coming from an xml, for that matter) in asp.net as a flowchart.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a freeware (although it would be nice).
What do you recommend I use?
Edit:
Automatically arranging the node locations according to the relations would be a big advantage.
I don't claim to be an expert in this, but I just spent a fair amount of time trolling around the web looking for such a tool. In the end, I found an awesome javascript engine for doing this:
jsPlumb: http://code.google.com/p/jsplumb/
It will take some work on your part, but the examples are very nice. It should be able to do everything you want.
Related
I need to draw a more elaborate Mindmap to present my test strategy to my client. I have no experience of creating mind map with any tool.
Can someone suggest any good mindmap making tool?
For "pure" mind mapping I would suggest Freeplane (free and open source). I know people using Freeplane for professional test case generation. Very helpful in this respect are
extensive scripting support that can be used to support testcase entry and for customized exports
multiple fields per node that can be used for different purposes: attributes (tabular data), notes, detail
If your primary focus is the generation of presentations then you should probably use a different tool.
For more elaborate mindmap I would suggest XMind.
With XMind you can even create testcases inside your mindmap using its matrix features. There are lots more features like:
Timeline
Gantt view
Filters
Drilldown
Try https://github.com/mindolph/Mindolph , this desktop application provides features that you can create and manage mind map easily.
You may try online service MindMup or desktop ConceptDraw MINDMAP. Though the first one is not that professional and intuitive as ConceptDraw tool, it is free. The second product has a 21-day trial period, brainstorm mode, multiple hyperlinks, export to MS PowerPoint or Web pages and so on.
Having a DokuWiki with some content (regular to small in sice and depth) I would like to automatically generate a GraphViz or Freeplane or any Form of easy to grasp visualisation of my content.
Why? Because the wiki tends to become less and less effective, when searching and organizing its content. As a user I have no good way to get a sharp Idea of the Wiki structure, which is why more and more often topics are not written and found where they supposed to be.
How to generate graphical sitemap of large website is what I found so far, but because my wiki is not that big, it would be quicker for me to just manually make a graph. And because the main topics are not that often updated or extended (like 10 extension a month tops), it would not be that hard to keed it up to date manually.
However, I would like to avoid manual tasks, at least in the future.
So is there a plugin or any other good way to graph the contents?
starting on the landing page, following the internal-wiki-links
using the namespace-sitemap
Either one would be nice, 1. interest me a bit more, because it reflects the paths a user could go, when just calling the wiki-start-page. I am greatful for any help, thanks.
I wrote a simple tool to do just that, the graph can then be analyzed in Gephi. Have a look at this blogpost: http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2010-08/02-graphing_dokuwiki_help_needed
I'm looking at requiring my team to document their code more thoroughly for some major upcoming projects and to make life a little less painful, I am steering towards XML documentation generators such as Sandcastle, Doxygen or Box Live Documenter.
What are the key considerations I should keep in mind when evaluating the best option and what experiences have led you to a particular decision?
For me the key considerations would be:
Fully automated: Can it be set up in such a way so that pretty much
no outside work is required to
create or edit the documentation.
Fully styled: Can the documentation be fully styled so
that it looks great in a wiki or pdf
after it’s generated. I should be
able to change colors, font sizes,
layouts, etc.
Good Filtering: Can I select only the items I want to be
generated. I should be able to
filter the namespaces, file types,
classes, etc.
Customization: Can I include headers, footers, custom elements,
etc.
I found Doxygen could do all of this. Our workflow is as follows:
Developer makes a change to the code
They update the documentation tags right above the code they just changed
We click a generate button
Doxygen will then extract all the XML documentation from the code, filter it to only include the classes and methods we want, and apply the CSS styling we’ve pre-made for it. Our end result is an internal wiki that looks the way we want, and doesn’t require editing.
Extra: We have all our projects in various git repositories. We pull all these down to one root folder and generate the docs form this root folder..
Would be interested to know how others are automating even further..?
Who is paying for the documentation and why? (is the system stable enough, does it add enough value)
Who is going to read it, and why is she not using a more effective communication channel?
(if correct mostly distance in time/place)
Who is going to keep it up to date.
When are you going to destroy it? (Automatically if it hasn't been read or updated in the past three months?)
I mostly prefer better code to make my life less painful, over more documentation, but I like scenario & unit tests and a high level architecture description.
[edit] Documentation costs time and money to write and keep up to date. JavaDoc style documentation has a serious detrimental effect on the amount of code simultaneously visible and might be a good idea for the developers using the code, but not for those writing it.
I'm planning to create a site for learning technologies, such as codeproject or codeplex. Can you please suggest to me the different ways to manage huge articles?
Look at a content management system, such as SiteFinity: http://www.sitefinity.com/. There are others, some free. You can find some on codeplex.com.
HTH.
Check out DotNetNuke CMS too >> http://www.dotnetnuke.com/
And here's a very hot list available of ASP.NET CMS systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems#Microsoft_ASP.NET_2
Different ways to manage articles while building the entire system yourself. Hmm, ok, let me give it a try... here's the short version.
There are several ways you can "store" your articles (content, data, whatever), and the best way to do so is to use a Database. (SQL Server, MySQL, SQLCE, SQLite, Oracle, the list goes on).
If you're not sold on the idea of a database, you can use any other type of persistent storage that you like. IE: XML, or even flat "TXT" files.
Since you're using ASP.NET you now need to either write your code behind, or some other complied code to access your stored data. You pull it out of the storage and display it on the page/view.
Last but not least, I'd like to give you a suggestion (even though it's not part of your original question). As the other answerers have stated, you should look at a pre-built CMS. If nothing else, to see how it's done (not necessarily to use it as is). My philosophy is quite simple, if you want to be productive in your development, don't bother reinventing the wheel just for the sake of it. If someone else has already build and given away exactly what you need, you should at very least give it a look and use what you can. It will save you piles of time and heartache.
Your question is not vague enough to be closed, but is vague enough that answering all of the nuances could take several thousand lines.
I've been looking into ASP.NET Dynamic Data and how it does scaffolding and routing. I've only scratched the surface, but it's looking like I'd have to create a template for each table that I didn't want to display all columns the same way.
My first impression after looking at dynamic data is that it would seem like less time on the programmer to have to edit one-time generated user controls rather than build a template for each table that doesn't have a uniform display behavior.
What proven solutions are people currently using that help ease the laborious tasks of creating ASP.NET CRUD type user controls?
Thanks
In ASP.NET webforms we use CodeSmith. From a single entity we generate admin pages, codebehinds, service layers, data layers and db stored procedures. All in a matter of seconds. I'd recommend you check it our for quickly building the crud in your apps.
We're actually working on our own code generation tool. It has already proven to work perfectly on the lower layers and now we're on the way to extend it for the presentation layer, that is for generating user controls.
I've not looked into dynamic data (although I'd like to when I have some time) but my biggest fear is always to lose flexibility. The problem is that these front-ends are then maybe generated dynamically each time based on some template and editing, especially bringing in special customer wishes becomes quite difficult. For small standard apps it may work perfectly though.
What we're therefore doing is to "generate" these usercontrols based on a set of standard custom server controls we've developed, but we'll generate just the first time from some static information about the entities in our application. Then you can continue customizing.
Such systems should help the developer, improving his development speed, doing the initial awkward work but then they should give him the flexibility to modify till the maximum. They should not add additional complexity...
I used .netTiers CodeSmith templates long time ago (years) and it was proven so strong, so, it must be more than great now.
I know a (big) company who have built a customization engine (allowing GUI for internal company options) around those templates to use them in most of their applications and were so successful.
I've used http://www.ironspeed.com/ in the past which has been great. Saved us MONTHS of time on our last project which has a big DB, so the cost is worth it. But it looks a bit ugly and can be tricky to update the DB schema once you've generated.
Obviously not much widespread use out there other than whats provided in Visual Studio.
Have a look at Blinq.