Specialized Shape and Tool Functionality Request

[Apolon Ivankovic]

First, congratulations on a fantastic new product. It''s awesome and opens up a bunch of application possibilities for me.

Unfortunately, being a typical user, I want more.
And I want it yesterday! ;^)

Would you consider adding the ability to specialize the standard shape classes with user specific classes? I''m thinking along the lines of Syncfusion adding a CreateShapeXXX factory method to each of the Tool classes that need to create any form of shape (or any other object for that matter).

For example:
virtual LineTool.CreateLine();
virtual EllipseTool.CreateEllipse();
virtual ArcTool.CreateArc();

This would then allow me to create specializations of the default tools which in turn create specialized shape instances. It (presumably) shouldn''t be too difficult to modify your existing code as it just means replaces new ShapeXX() calls with createShapeXXX() calls.

The reason this functionality is being requested is that I''m developing a graphic editor for a legacy product that has less/different graphic functionality settings than comes with Essential Diagram shapes. The requirement is for the property editor to display a different set of properties than comes standard with Essential Diagram shapes. I''d like to be able to specialize the standard shapes and then alter what properties are exposed and how they are exposed by implementing ICustomTypeDescriptor.

Would you consider the Tool Factory Method functionality addition?

[Administrator]

I think adding object factories to the shape drawing tools is a very good idea. It''s very similar to the way the LinkTool works and it should be fairly easy to implement. We''ll get it in there for the next beta.

Thanks a lot for your input and for your compliments about the product.

>First, congratulations on a fantastic new product. It''s awesome and opens up a bunch of application possibilities for me.
>
>Unfortunately, being a typical user, I want more.
>And I want it yesterday! ;^)
>
>Would you consider adding the ability to specialize the standard shape classes with user specific classes? I''m thinking along the lines of Syncfusion adding a CreateShapeXXX factory method to each of the Tool classes that need to create any form of shape (or any other object for that matter).
>
>For example:
>virtual LineTool.CreateLine();
>virtual EllipseTool.CreateEllipse();
>virtual ArcTool.CreateArc();
>
>This would then allow me to create specializations of the default tools which in turn create specialized shape instances. It (presumably) shouldn''t be too difficult to modify your existing code as it just means replaces new ShapeXX() calls with createShapeXXX() calls.
>
>The reason this functionality is being requested is that I''m developing a graphic editor for a legacy product that has less/different graphic functionality settings than comes with Essential Diagram shapes. The requirement is for the property editor to display a different set of properties than comes standard with Essential Diagram shapes. I''d like to be able to specialize the standard shapes and then alter what properties are exposed and how they are exposed by implementing ICustomTypeDescriptor.
>
>Would you consider the Tool Factory Method functionality addition?
>