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Overview -> New Features in daVinci V2.0.x

[daVinciLogo] - Online Documentation V2.0.3

New Features in daVinci V2.0.x


daVinci V2.0 is a major release with more significant new features than any other previous version of daVinci. The most important modifications are: Transition from OpenWindows to OSF/Motif, support for multi-graph and multi-view, dynamic graph layout, vertical fine tuning, 2D-scrolling, layout orientations, navigation functions, search operation, online documentation, revised API, Tcl/Tk interface, full compatibility with daVinci V1.x.

All new features, compared to previous release V1.4.2, are described below in the following categories (you can click on the links for quick access):

Read the release notes to see what is new in the current minor release daVinci V2.0.3.

Motif like User Interface

The OpenWindows user interface of former daVinci V1.x releases has been completely redeveloped to be compliant with the OSF/Motif style guide. The user interface is now implemented in Tcl/Tk. Read
below about the Tcl/Tk interface of the API.

Some highlights of the daVinci V2.0.x user interface:

Multi-Graph / Multi-View

daVinci V2.0.x is able to visualize
many graphs in different windows at the same time. Further, each of these graphs may have different views (windows). All views of a graph are connected with each other, so interaction (e.g. fine tuning) in one view manipulates the other views, too. On the other side, windows showing different graphs are independent from each other. A special survey view allows to see a graph both in detail view and overview at the same time.

Graph Layout

daVinci V2.0.x is able to draw a graph in all
four directions: top-down, bottom-up, left-to-right and right-to-left.

Some features of a new dynamic layout engine are enabled in the new release: By using the API, a daVinci application can change node and edge attributes or send graph updates to modify a loaded graph incrementally.

Some new attributes have been added to draw nodes with a double border and edges with a double or thick line. daVinci V2.0.x supports true color. i.e. 24bit color values for nodes and edges.

Interactive Operations

Fine tuning has been improved for the new version to move nodes vertically to a new level. This feature also takes advance of daVinci's dynamic layout engine.

2D-scrolling is a new technique to scroll in both directions at the same time. This can be done by pressing the middle mouse button while moving the mouse.

A navigation feature offers the opportunity to browse in a graph by moving from a currently selected node to the next relative node or neighbour node in all four directions (with animation!).

With a find operation, the user is able to search for particular nodes with a specified text.

Selection functions can be used to show all parent-, sibling- or child nodes of a currently selected node.

Online Documentation

A new hypertext online documentation is available in HTML format (you are actually reading it). Direct access to daVinci Internet resources and integration of the help system is implemented with this approach. The online documentation has a search engine (i.e. index) which is written in Java.

Application Programmer Interface

The
API has a new more intuitive syntax to realize application access to all new features of daVinci V2.0.x (e.g. multi-graph mode, graph updates or attaching new icons to the icon bar). Transition to the new API syntax is easy and full backward compatibility is guaranteed by supporting all former V1.x API commands. The new API is re-entrant, so an application can be disconnected at run-time to connect another one. Further, the new API is fault tolerant to proceed after a command with syntax errors has been received.

The V2.0.x API has a Tcl/Tk interface to execute Tcl-scripts by daVinci in the same way as it can be done with a wish shell (but with direct access to the daVinci API from inside the Tcl-script). This way, an application can offer arbitrary dialog windows by using nothing else but daVinci. Note: daVinci is not a usual Tk object, so it is not possible to manipulate daVinci's user interface or graph visualization with Tcl/Tk commands!

Better Performance

Despite of many new features, benchmarks have demonstrated that daVinci V2.0.x runs about 25% faster than the previous release daVinci V1.4.2 with the same tasks. This was measured on the daVinci development platform Sun Solaris 2.5, results for other UNIX platforms may vary. The memory consumption of V2.0.x at runtime is reduced by 20%, compared to daVinci V1.4.2.

Full Compatibility

daVinci V2.0.x is fully compatible to previous V1.x releases. The graph format (
term representation) has not been changed with transition to V2.0.x, so you can load all V1.x graphs. The format of status files is modified to support the new features, but status files stored with V1.x versions of daVinci can be loaded in compatibility mode. The API is completely revised (see above), but a backward compatibility mode allows to connect applications written for the V1.x API.

Shortcomings in daVinci V2.0.x

The following shortcomings are present in the current release:


daVinci V2.0.3 Online Documentation - Page update: Nov 25, 1996