JGraph : beautiful choice

For a java swing management tool for my current Interconnection project I needed a java library to show a graphical representation of an internal algorithm.
So I started looking for java libraries for the simple graphical representation and found these libraries:

• Piccolo2D : http://www.piccolo2d.org/index.html
• JGraph : http://www.jgraph.com/

Really I needed a simple library to draw: links, rectangles and rhombus, common flow-chart symbols.

Best of these for my needs is JGraph , very complete and simple with a complete documentation. Respects a Piccolo2D is very complete in the linking management and layout design.

Very big problems for me were redistributing shapes and redesign all the forms and links, avoiding intersections.

In JGraph you can adopt, once created all shapes and links, a layout that redesign all shapes apply a particular representation (Tree, circular, organic, …) or you can implement generic Interface mxGraphLayout to create your own layout.

I used JGraph 6 for swing application and really recommend it.

To the next Post.