FlexDiagram - WinForms Diagram Component for Dynamic Data Visualization
ComponentOne FlexDiagram is a powerful .NET control designed to turn flat or hierarchical data into highly visual and interactive diagrams.
- Create Quick Diagrams in C# - Create data-bound or unbound diagrams with minimal code.
- Highly Customizable Graphics - Configure every aspect of the diagram, including flow direction, node shapes, connecting lines, and arrows.
- MermaidJS Syntax Support - Load entire diagrams from a simple text file or string.
Overview
WinForms Diagram Highlights
Transform Data Into Insightful Visual Diagrams
FlexDiagram converts hierarchical or tabular data sources directly into rich visual structures. Whether building a dynamic org chart or a multi-stage process flow, FlexDiagram handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on your data and not the drawing.
Fully Interactive Diagram Experiences
FlexDiagram provides intuitive user interactions, including zooming, selection, tooltips, and hit-testing. Turn static diagrams into explorable, drill-down visual experiences, ideal for dashboards, analysis tools, and data-driven enterprise applications.
Programmatically Build Flow Charts and Decision Trees
For full customization, FlexDiagram lets you create and style nodes and edges entirely in code. Build conditional flows, advanced tree visualizations, dependency graphs, or any bespoke diagram your application requires.
MermaidJS Support for Seamless Diagram Creation
Use familiar MermaidJS syntax to generate diagrams instantly within your .NET app. You can integrate existing Mermaid content or empower end users to create diagrams using simple text-based markup. Generate an entire multi-tiered diagram from just a string!
WinForms Diagram Key Features
Hierarchical Data Binding
Automatically generate diagrams from hierarchical data structures where each object contains a collection of child objects.
Tabular Data Binding
FlexDiagram can also generate diagrams from flat, tabular data sources where columns represent hierarchy levels.
Unbound
Manually create diagram elements programmatically without data binding. You explicitly create each node and edge, defining their properties and connections.
MermaidJS Support
FlexDiagram can parse and render diagrams defined in MermaidJS syntax—a popular text-based diagramming language.
Hierarchical Data Binding
Automatically generate diagrams from hierarchical data structures where each object contains a collection of child objects. FlexDiagram reads the data structure and renders the visual representation automatically.
Tabular Data Binding
FlexDiagram can also generate diagrams from flat, tabular data sources where columns represent hierarchy levels. FlexDiagram interprets the column relationships to build the tree structure.
So YES, you can take data from your databases and spreadsheets and quickly create diagrams in your WinForms apps!
In flat data binding, each column represents a level in the hierarchy. Adjacent cells in the same column with the same value are treated as a single node.
Unbound
Manually create diagram elements programmatically in C# or VB.NET without requiring a data source. You can explicitly create each node and edge, defining their properties and connections.
With unbound support, you can also parse any custom data source you have lying around and translate it into a diagram!
MermaidJS Support
FlexDiagram can parse and render diagrams defined in MermaidJS syntax—a popular text-based diagramming language. This allows you to create diagrams using simple text notation.
Even if you’ve never used MermaidJS, you can take advantage of its diagram syntax to quickly prototype diagrams that can be rendered in .NET Windows Forms using FlexDiagram. You can even load an entire diagram from just a string using MermaidJS syntax.
Adaptive Layout
Create dynamic graphs that auto-scale to fit any space. FlexDiagram can render itself using absolute sizes or be scaled to fit the form.
Flow Direction
Configure the direction of the diagram by setting a single property. Flow your diagrams horizontally, vertically, or in both directions.
Node Shapes
FlexDiagram supports several built-in node shapes, including rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, ellipse, rhombus, diamond, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon.
Edge & Arrow Styles
Effortlessly customize the edge and arrow styles to complete your diagram’s connecting lines.
Color Palettes
Apply one of the 16 built-in palettes to quickly give your diagrams a colorful style, or create your own custom palette.
Sketch Mode
One of the most unique features of FlexDiagram is its “Sketch” render mode, which can make your diagrams look hand-drawn.
Adaptive Layout
FlexDiagram can render itself using absolute sizes or be scaled to fit the form. Create dynamic graphs that auto-scale to fit any space, ensuring the diagrams display completely on any size screen. With built-in zoom and scaling features, users can further adjust the size at runtime without requiring any additional code.
Flow Direction
Configure the direction of the diagram by setting a single property. Flow your diagrams left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top. The direction can be dynamically changed at runtime, allowing the user to choose the best fit for the visualization.
Node Shapes
FlexDiagram supports several built-in node shapes, including rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, ellipse, rhombus, diamond, house (pentagon), hexagon, and octagon. Nodes also include borders, titles, content areas, and support for embedding images.
Edge & Arrow Styles
Choose from a variety of edge (line) and arrow styles to complete your diagrams. Lines can be rendered as straight, spline (rounded), rectilinear (elbow), and even Sugiyama-style (S-shaped). You can easily customize the line thickness, dash array (dotted lines), color, and more.
Color Palettes
FlexDiagram is part of the larger FlexChart family, so it shares the same collection of color palettes. You can apply one of the 16 built-in color palettes to quickly give your diagrams a colorful style, or you can provide your own custom palette. FlexDiagram also supports dark mode in .NET 10.
Sketch Mode
The unique sketch render mode quickly turns your polished diagrams into hand-drawn works of art. Use this render mode to illustrate prototypes and workflow drafts, or just enable it as a fun runtime feature for your users to try. It can be enabled by just setting the SketchMode property.
Zoom & Pan
FlexDiagram supports built-in zoom-in and zoom-out functions, which allow any size diagram to fit any user's device. There’s even a “scale to fit” command.
Tooltips
Simplify your diagram displays by providing additional information to the user in the form of tooltips over nodes and edges.
Hit-Testing
Unlock custom interaction scenarios with FlexDiagram’s HitTest method, which can return the nearest node or edge to the user's mouse.
Selection
Quickly implement drill-down scenarios where the application can take some action when a certain node is selected.
Zoom & Pan
FlexDiagram supports built-in zoom-in and zoom-out functions, which allow any size diagram to fit any user's device. There’s even a “scale to fit” command.
Users can also use the mouse wheel or touchpad to perform zoom actions. When zoomed in, users can pan or scroll the diagram by dragging the mouse.
Tooltips
Simplify your diagram displays by providing additional information to the user in the form of tooltips over nodes and edges. Each node and edge object supports a tooltip property that you can customize.
Hit-Testing
FlexDiagram’s zoom, selection, and tooltip features will give you most of the interaction you need in your diagrams. But for that extra small use case you’ll think of later, the HitTest method is very useful to unlock those niche interaction use cases. The HitTest method, when combined with a mouse move or click event, can determine where the user is trying to interact with the diagram. Determine which node or edge is nearest the mouse and take it from there.
Selection
FlexDiagram’s Selection feature enables you to quickly implement drill-down scenarios, where the application can take action when a specific node is selected. When node selection is enabled, you can provide a custom selection style and obtain the selected node index. For further selection customization, such as selecting edges, you can use the HitTest method.
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