The design of an extendible graph editor
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The design of an extendible graph editor
zbMATH Open document ID: 0785.68090
author: Frances Newbery Paulisch
published in: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
publication date: 1993-12-06T00:00:00Z
review text: The book is a revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation. It is concerned with the design of an extendible graph editor kernel. Extendibility means the graph editor can easily adapted to a wide variety of applications. Changes made by the user will be reflected as well in the graphical representation as in the application itself. The following problems are dealt with: Graph layout: It places the nodes and the edges of a graph according to some layout aesthetics (planarity, symmetry, hierarchy, uniformity of edge length, minimal edge crossings,...). In the case of large graphs automatic layout algorithms could cause instability (a small change in the graph structure can drastically change its layout). Depending on the semantics (application) of a graph a special layout could be needed. Therefore, a combination of a layout constraint manager and an automatic layout algorithm is proposed. Graphical abstraction: Large graphs are unmanageable and not well understandable. Therefore, the user should only view a portion of the graph and a layout overview without node details. Three methods are treated: hierarchical subgraph abstractions, separate views, edge concentration. Persistence: Graphs (their description) should be preserved beyound the execution of programs creating them. A language GRL is defined allowing the textual description of graphs, editing such descriptions and their extension to handle application-specific attributes. Extendibility: It is accomplished by an object-oriented graph editor with the basic classes graph, edge, node. Application dependency can be defined by subclasses. There is also a program generator AGENT transforming class declarations and subclass declarations into a set of programs (Input, Output, Menu, Constructors, Destructors) and a GRL data file. The described solutions are realized in the well-known system EDGE. A good survey of related work is included into the book. The text is accompanied by a lot of examples.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68U05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68-01
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68N99
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68R10
zbMATH DE Number: 473816
zbMATH Keywords: graph layout
zbMATH Keywords: graphical abstraction
zbMATH Keywords: persistence
zbMATH Keywords: extendible graph editor
reviewed by: Günther Riedewald
MaRDI profile type: Publication
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 473816