About this Developer’s Guide

This Developer’s Guide provides information for the beginner who wants an introduction to the yFiles for HTML diagramming library as well as for the advanced user who wants to know how to customize a certain feature. Below you’ll find a brief overview of the chapters of this developer’s guide:

yFiles for HTML Features

contains a comprehensive list of all yFiles for HTML features and links to the relevant chapters and sections in this Developer’s Guide. This list can be used as an entry point to quickly find information about specific yFiles for HTML features in this Developer’s Guide.

Getting Started

describes how to set up a yFiles for HTML project in your preferred development environment and provides a brief introduction to the most important yFiles for HTML features. First-time users should read this chapter first to get familiar with the most basic principles.For a very quick start, just read the first few sections.

Demos and Tutorials

introduces the source code programming samples that come with yFiles for HTML and shows how to set up a project in your IDE for them. After reading this chapter, you know how to run the demos and can explore its source code in detail using your IDE.

The main part

comprises the chapters that describe the yFiles for HTML features in more detail. Developers should be familiar with The Graph Model and Displaying the Graph. If your use cases include User Interaction and Graph I/O and Printing, read these chapters, too.Of the chapters Automatic Graph Layout and Graph Analysis, consult the introductory sections and then just the sections that cover the features you need.

The customization part

repeats the sectioning of the main part: Customizing the Graph, Customizing the View, Customizing User Interaction, Customizing Styles, Customizing Graph I/O, and Customizing Automatic Layout. Chapter General Concepts for Customization explains the general concepts used in yFiles for HTML for customizations.These chapters mostly show customizations which go beyond simply setting a property. They are meant for developers who want to realize a specific behavior differently from the yFiles for HTML defaults. Don’t read them from start to end but rather look for the section that covers your current problem.

Advanced Concepts

comprises supplemental, more complex yFiles for HTML features, namely Filtering, Folding, and Tables. Read the corresponding chapter if you want to use one of the concepts shown therein.