Re: [Orgmode] Business process diagrams in org-mode

[Bart Bunting]

Hi Eric,

Thanks very much for the suggestion!

I'm not familiar with dot but will invest some time to see if I can get
my head around it.  

This sounds like a good solution.  Perhaps just writing directly in dot
will solve my problem.

Cheers

Bart

  On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:25:12 +0000, Eric S Fraga <address@hidden> wrote:
> Bart Bunting <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Hi All,
> >
> > This is a little bit of a vague question but was hopeing that someone
> > may have some pointers.
> >
> > I am trying to create some business processes with both textual
> > descriptions of the process in a table format with step numbers and
> > descriptions etc.  I was hopeing to be able to automagicaly convert the
> > tabular format into a business process diagram.
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone has done this in the past using org-mode and
> > bable some how?
> >
> > As I am blind I can't successfully create such diagrams using drawing
> > software.  It occurred to me though that it should (could) be possible
> > to create diagrams from sufficient information in a table structure.
> >
> > The diagrams are the usual flow chart style of thing with steps and 
> > descision
> > points causing the flow to branch to another point.  I thought that if
> > we had something like the following it may be possible to generate a
> > diagram.
> >
> >
> >
> > | Step        | Description                                                 
> >             | Next Steps       |
> > |-------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------|
> > | Begin       | Begin the process                                           
> >             | Choice1          |
> > | Choice1     | Decide if we are big or small.                              
> >             | Big,Small        |
> > | Big         | If we are big then do big things                            
> >             | End              |
> > | Small       | If we are small then figure out if we are really small or 
> > possibly big. | ReallySmall, Big |
> > | ReallySmall | Yes we are really small                                     
> >             | End              |
> > | End         | The end.                                                    
> >             |                  |
> > |-------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------|
> >
> >
> > This would represent a process where we start, make a choice if we are big 
> > or small.  If we are big we do big things and end.  If we are small we make 
> >  a choice if we are really small or actually big.  If we decide we are 
> > actualy big then we go back to the big step.  If not we go on to the end.
> >
> >
> > Anyway just thought I'd ask in case someone had a suggestion how this could 
> > be done using org-mode.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Bart
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> > Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> > address@hidden
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
> 
> Bart,
> 
> others have already pointed you to some code I wrote to convert tables
> into GANTT charts using tikz in LaTeX.  For this problem, however, I
> would suggest that converting a table to dot format (cf. graphviz [1])
> might be more appropriate.  dot will generate quite nice graphs or
> trees.  tikz can do it as well but you might find it easier with dot.
> 
> The one issue will be parsing your /Next Steps/ column.  You might find
> it easier to have next steps be a variable number of columns, one for
> each step for a particular step with empty entries for those that don't
> have many next steps.  I hope that makes some sort of sense...
> 
> The table above would be converted to something like:
> 
> #+begin_src dot
> digraph process {
>   begin [label="Begin the process"];
>   choice1 [label="Decide if we are big or small"];
> 
>   begin -> choice1;
> 
>   ...
> }
> #+end_src
> 
> I can't help with this at the moment (swamped at work) unfortunately but
> have a look at my GANTT code and see if that can give you a start.  I'll
> have more time in a couple of weeks hopefully.
> 
> HTH,
> eric
> 
> Footnotes: 
> [1]  http://www.graphviz.org/
> 
> -- 
> : Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 23.2.1
> : using Org-mode version 7.3 (release_7.3.78.ge04ba)

-- 

Bart Bunting

URSYS Pty. Ltd                                                             
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