About the Circle of Influence diagram Applet
This COI (Circle of Influence) Applet is a Java Swing GUI implemented using the Northern Woods JGo Java graph objects framework. It was developed as part of a technical sales application for Technical Selling Enterprises LLC. The applet communicates with an ASP web application running on Microsoft's IIS web server. MJ Kahn was the project manager and implementor of the server side code. To run the applet in your browser you must have at least Java 1.4.2 installed.

Overview
The image below shows the applet running. Above the panes is a row of buttons and a message window. The small top left pane is an overview in case the diagram gets very large. The tall pane below it is the palette with objects that can be dragged and dropped onto the view which is the large pane to the right. The diagram represents the relationships among stakeholders in a technical sales situation. Links between stakeholders can only flow upwards to "The Decision Maker", the TDM. Links may be of the I (influence) or R (recommends) type and can be changed by double clicking on them. The ? type is temporary until an R or I is specified. Error messages and conditions are shown red on yellow. Nodes and links may be deleted. The stakeholders are condensed and returned to the palette. Drop down menus allow the power level and priority of stakehoders to be set. Double click on a stakeholder top see a list of their issues and needs. The save and restore are threaded and have been enabled for this demo, your current IP address is used as the key. Decision criteria is not saved since it is not editable and is provided by the real application. For maximum drawing area and to see the applet resize capability, run the COI applet in a new window.
Click Here to run the applet full size in a resizable new window.    Click Here to run the applet in this frame.

COI Diagram

Some Interesting Features

  • Diagram rules are enforced, use the Check Diagram button; links must go up, all stakeholders must influence someone, priority values must all be different.
  • Nodes can't even be dragged to an illegal location. An undo manager is used to cancel the operation.
  • Snap to grid location is used in this particular JGo diagram.
  • Yellow bars are displayed on the stakeholders if the node has an error.
  • Stakeholders hiding others are flagged.
  • Palette has the stakeholder nodes condensed to names only to save space.
  • Right click in the message window to clear it.
  • Double click on stakeholder for popup frame of issues and needs.
  • Browser JavaScript code may call public methods of the applet, e.g to test if the diagram has been edited before leaving the page to remind the user to save the diagram.
  • Printing of the diagram, scaled to your printer page is allowed in a browser even with an unsigned applet.
  • The diagram scale may be set so that even large diagrams can be viewed. Drag node to the far left or bottom to see this.
  • The JAR file on the server has been compressed to minimum size using ProGuard for fast download to your browser. It is only about 325K bytes for this applet.