August, 1996 <br>

<b>anemone</b>, <i>pre-alpha release</i>
<br>
Anemone was originally written as a tool for drawing graphs,
butit is currently evolving into a network visualization tool.
its primary features of interest are the abilities to: (1) 
zoom in to desired level of detail; and 
(2) interactively place/move nodes. 
<br>
<i>anemone</i> has been generally useful
but still needs a lot of work.  but its utility
in the suit of CAIDA network drawing tools
(<font size=-1><b><a href=../>http://www.nlanr.net/Ndtools/</a></b></font>)
compels us to release it now, in hopes of
getting feedback and suggestions for its
intended release.
<br>
Anemone is public domain. forgive the three sets of copyrights...all
of them basically specify that you can use, change, and redistribute
anemone for whatever purposes you desire.
<br>
as usual, examples, suggestions and patches are welcome.
<br>
<br>
<dd> Eric Hoffman
<dd> hoffman@ipsilon.com

<hr>
Anemone uses a startup file to keep node positions in between runs.
While this can be useful when running data sets through anemone
which in you want to keep the same positions (such as an animation),
it's generally clumsy.
 <br>
future releases of anemone will have a more 'editor' like function,
where multiple networks can be loaded and saved.
 <br>
<dl>
<dt> -startup <i>filename</i>			    
<dd>   override the compiled-in startup default 	     
<dt>  -ps		
<dd>  write a postscript file on standard out with the top level transform
   given the first <i>snap</i>command or the implicit snap at the
   end of reading standard input
<dt>  -x <i>[display]</i>	
<dd>   bring up an X display (the default) with the optional display string
<dt>  -load <i>filename</i>	 			     
<dd> load skip commands from <i>filename</i>
<dt>  -sync_load <i>filnename</i>	
<dd> load skip commands from <i>filename</i>, but block until the file
     read is finshed. by default anemone interleaves loads from seperate
     files as well as user input.
<dt>  -xoff <i>float</i>	 
<dd> set the world-to-display global translation on the x axis
<dt>  -yoff <i>float</i>	 	
<dd> set the world-to-display global translation on the y axis
<dt>  -xscale <i>float</i>	 	
<dd> set the world-to-display global scale on the x axis
<dt>  -yscale <i>float</i>	 	
<dd> set the world-to-display global scale on the y axis
<dt>  -ndt		 	
<dd>  read ndt format from standard in instead of skip commands
<dt>  -font <i>x-font-name</i>			     
<dd>  specify font (used for buttons and labels both)
<dt>  -connect <i>host</i> <i>service</i>		     
<dd>  create a TCP connection to the given host at the given
  service/port. This connection will have a 'skip' interpreter
  session associated with it (see below).	     
</dl>			 	        	     
<hr>
Anemone uses an interpreted language

  node_position_file <i>filename</i>                   	       	<br>
  node <i>nodename</i>	 		            		<br>
  edge <i>fromnode</i> <i>tonode</i> <i>edgename</i>            <br>
    edgename can be {}                                          <br>

  background_line <i>color</i> <i>width</i> { <br>
<dd> <i>x</i> <i>y</i>                    </dd><br>
<dd> ...                                  </dd><br>
<dd> }                                    </dd><br>

					                   <br>
  edge_property <i>edge</i> <i>propname</i> <i>propval</i> <br>
  node_property <i>node</i> <i>propname</i> <i>propval</i> <br>
  autosize              		        	<br>
  sleep <i>interval</i> 		        	<br>

  xscale <i>float</i>   		        	<br>
  yscale <i>float</i>			        	<br>
  group <i>parent</i> <i>something</i> <node> ...       <br>
  snap             			        	<br>
  node_hint <i>nodename</i> <i>x</i> <i>y</i> <i>shape</i> <i>width</i> <i>height</i> <br>
  load <i>filename</i>                   		<br>
  sync <i>filename</i>                                  <br>
  load_ndt  <i>filename</i>                             <br>

<hr>
interactive buttons: <br>
several of these actually don't do anything useful right now


<dl>
<dt> postscript
 <dd> saves out a postscript in the current view 
<dt> save startup
 <dd> save the current startup file. it used to do this after every
      mouse release, but this proved to be unfortunate 
<dt>autoplace
 <dd> turn on autoplace. selected nodes will try and place themselves 
<dt>autosize
 <dd> place full graph so as to fill the maximal screen area without
   changing aspect<br>
</dl>

<hr>
work in progress: <br>
<ul>
<li> editor like semantics
<li> dynamic panes for multiple graph displays and text display/entry
<li> some decent interaction method for calling ndttools and generators
     from inside anemone
<li> decent edge-labels and interface-labels
<li> a better internal newtonian interactive placement heuristic
<li> upgraded postscript support that deals with shapes
<li> re-integration of the SNMP support from Vince. 
<li> re-integration of the chart display for real-time statistics.
<li> allow specification of different fonts for different purposes
</ul>

things it's never going to do: <br>
<ul>
<li> have bitmapped icons for nodes
<li> have pseudo-nodes in edges (required by some layout algorithms)
</ul>