Question Flowcharts/ Flow diagrams in Visual Studio for desktop apps

[high42]

Hello, I would like to know if there is any way to create interactive flowcharts in visual studio for a desktop application.

What I would actually like to do is to build an app that can build a hierarchy diagram/flowchart from information that will vary depending on a query made by the user. Hence the diagrams have to be built through code dynamically.

Another thing that is needed is that when the user clicks on one of the diagram boxes to be able to create another diagram or simply put, to interact with the diagram.

Is it possible to do this in Visual Studio? If so, are there any free controls/add-ins that allow you to do it?

On the other hand, I thought of flash as a way to do it but to be honest I have no clue about that. If you know any possible way to do this be it in visual studio or any other developer enviroment please let me know.

You can see aan example of the diagram below. Thanks in advanced

 

[jmcilhinney]

There would be .NET flowchart components but the likelihood of finding a free one would be little to none, based on how much work would be involved. You could do it all using GDI+ and your own logic. It would be a challenge but not impossible. For a commercial app though, the amount of time spent creating it would cost you more in delayed sales than an off-the-shelf third-party component would set you back.

 

[high42]

Thought so, thanx. Sounds like a good challenge but its not an option given time limitation. From what I saw on the web prices for a third party app are around 500 USD.

Any recommendation for a different set of tools to use to develop that type of diagrams?

 

[jmcilhinney]

I've never looked into it so I have no clue.

 

[high42]

In case anyone wants to know, what I found was that there are no free libraries to do this. The two that I found to be suitable for what I wanted are:

GoDiagram - Diagram components from Northwoods for .NET, ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF and Javaor
yFiles.NET - yFiles.NET - Graph Layout and Visualization Library (this one has the option to work on other frameworks besides .NET)