Format or standard of imported pictures?

Question

Hi,

I found out that for nodes with imported pictures a large portion of text is placed at the end of a graphml file. This seems to describe the picture as a raster.

In order to make importing pictures simpler I'm wondering if I can use another prgram(or make a program) to create this added text.

Can you tell me which format o standard is used?

Thanks in advance,

Kasper

 

 

Comments

Please describe in detail how the desired information will make working with yEd any easier. Lets say you have a raster image on your HD and you know the corresponding GraphML text representation for that image. And now, what are you going to do with that information?

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Dear Thomas,

I have made an input front end so that I can easily create a list of topics that I would like to put in a mind map. Because of the ease of visually recognizing images I want to add images to each topic.

I need yEd to automatically create a mindmap with the "organic" functionality.

I would like to be able to add the images via the "text or byte code" that yEd includes at the bottom. This saves me a lot of manual labour.

I hope this gives an idea of my objectives.

Best regards,

Kasper

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Please describe the interaction between your input front end and yEd.

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Hi Thomas,

It is a 2 step approach. First I create an XML file for the topology and let yEd create the graph. After that I enrich the GraphML file with information such as labels, picture and URL's. In this second step I need to attach the byte/text for each picture.

This is much easier if I was able to pre-process the pictures. This is the reason behind my question.

Thanks for your reply,

Kasper

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Kasper, your process is awfully close to automating yEd - and that is not allowed (see yEd Software License Agreement). Please clarify how exactly your front end uses yEd to create graphs from the XML files it creates.

Answer 1

Dear Thomas,

OK, I have read the License agreement.

The process as described previously is still a lot of manual work. I have created simple tools to make my life easier.

Can you tel me whether using (purchasing) a commercial product (such as yFiles) allows me to create my own tool?

Best regards,

 

Kasper

Comments

I have repeatedly asked you for a detailed description of how your front end interacts with yEd. "It is a 2 step process" and "The process as described previously is still a lot of manual work." is not details.

How does your front end "let yEd create the graph"?

Please understand that I will not disclose any yEd implementation details without a thorough understanding of what you are doing.

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Answer 2

Yes, purchasing one of the yFiles programming libraries will enable you to create your own tool. The yFiles for Java library even comes with a source code example of a stripped down version of yEd you are free to customize as you want.

All of the yFiles programming libraries may be evaluated for 30 days free-of-charge so you can decide whether or not yFiles fulfills your requirements. (For yFiles for Java, the aforementioned source code example is available during evaluation, too.)

Comments

Dear Thomas,
Perhaps mentioning a front end has to put us of on the wrong foot. I have made macro’s and worksheets in excel that allow me to create the input in the form of a adjacency matrix. Based on this  adjacency matrix an XML file that declares the nodes and edges is made. This XML file looks like the first example in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GraphML
In yEd I have created a custom palette with one standardised symbol. This is a square of 300 by 300 pixels. This is my default node symbol. After opening the XML file with the nodes and edges an organic graph is made (this is done interacting manually) by yEd.
The graph I just made is saved as a GraphML file. As you know this file contains the positions of the nodes and a lot of lines to register other properties of the nodes.
With a second set of macro’s I read in the GraphML file and add data such as the label, URL etc.
As an example I add the label of the node just before the text/y:NodeLabel>
My original question is about inserting specific pictures for each node. Within the 300 by 300 pics square I would like to insert these. With some experimentation I already found out that each inserted picture is rastered and written down in byte code. I have trouble to recreate this with another tool.
I hope that you understand that I am not automating yEd. This is not within my skill set. I am automating creating input for yEd so that I am able to create and change mindmaps.
Please be patient if you have additional questions.

Best regards,

Kasper

Answer 3

Thank you very much for clarifying your process. You are right, you are not automating yEd. ;-)

Would you mind contacting yed[at]yworks.com by eMail for the format information? I would rather not post the format specifics in a public forum. (Please reference this thread in your eMail.)