Java library for creating and dynamically changing business diagrams

Question

I am looking for a good java library for manipulating boxes, arrows and shortcuts to dynamically create and populate charts as follows and display them in png: Another example

I can create a static template that will be filled in later, but I will need to dynamically create labels for each field and edges in the diagrams.

At the moment, I tried to use batik to control the svg template, but creating multi-line labels for edges turned out to be quite complicated. The SVG path with batik seems to make me create 1 text object for each line of labels with absolute positioning for each, which is a real pain.

I would like to be able to define a label that defines only the text and the link to which they refer, in the end some hints about how this should be placed and allow the library to place them.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

If this is due to a commercial scenario, the Java yFiles graphic drawing library may be suitable for your requirements:

You can use the convenient API to create and stylize a chart and automatically layout the chart with the parameters of lots and lots to limit the resulting layout according to your needs. Multi-line and (simple) HTML tags are ready-made. You can also export to PNG (as well as other pixel-based image formats) and vector graphic formats such as SVG, PDF, EPS.

This can be done both in a regular Java application (Swing), and in a headless environment (for example, to create images on a server and to send them dynamically to an Internet-based thin client).

To understand what can be done with the help of this library, I suggest you take a look at the freely available application for the graphical editor "yEd" which is based on yFiles and allows you to perform the above actions in an interactive way.

(Disclosure: I work for yWorks, but on Stackoverflow I don't represent my employer.)