Figures: A Diagram Editor (Report‪)‬

The purpose of this paper is to present a general-purpose web application for supplying diagrams and illustrations for inclusion in teaching materials or presentations, and for students' work. It is browserbased, that is, no client software is required. All diagrams are rendered to GIF images (CompuServe 1989), and the project brings a number of innovative ideas about the structure of diagrams. The starting concept is simple: diagrams are treated in a web page as a set of objects, which are dynamically rendered as individual GIF images, and can be positioned relative to each other and in layers. Such positioning is achieved by specifying distances relative to specified points or edges of other objects, here called attachment points. For example, a rectangular box has nine attachment points by default, but user defined objects can specify their own set of attachment points. Examples of objects with natural attachment points include UML elements (OMG 1997-2008), or electronic components.