On the Benefits of Documentation and Its Reading

I am stupid. That is the only possible explanation for the way I've wasted most of the last couple of weeks of work, by hard-coding a number of transformations into my code, when the library I'm using (prefuse, just in case you'd forgotten) supports java.awt.geom.AffineTransform, in all it's glory, or should that be gory. So now, I've been hacking out all my size handling code; all my device co-ordinate handling code; all the uncommented, unneccessary, inexplicable cruft that has been cluttering up my code, and replacing it all with a single AffineTransform applied to the Display.

This has meant that I've been able to trash my idea of creating a new class. I'd already pretty much finished AdjacencyMatrixManager which was to know the size we were drawing at (i.e. the dimensions of the matrix we were filling in) and be able to convert points in a useful co-ordinate system (such as one with the origin at the bottom-left) into device co-ordinates. As quick as it was to hack up, it didn't take much longer to tear out again.

Now, all my classes are smaller (most of the are just a couple of one-liners in an interface stub), my code is [probably] going to be faster (there are a lot fewer method calls), and it is a lot simpler, with all of the stupidity caused by the device co-ordinates confined to one place.

The only problem I can see will be in adding interface elements that I don't want the AffineTransform to be applied to. Things like tooltips mustn't be transformed, or we'll wind up with huge, unreadable text the obscures its subject. On the other hand, it will be a lot easier to do things like highlighting effects, and such like as I no longer need to pass around various parameters.

On the whole, this is the better path, even though I may need to start poking at prefuse's insides.