I need to be able to generate dependency diagrams programmatically. I'd like it to be able to generate a bunch of boxes with labels and connectors linking them, and ideally the component would position them automatically onto a design surface which could then be manually rearranged.
I'm using WinForms and C# 2.0 (VS2005).
EDIT: However, since it'll be an internal tool, I can probably use 3.5 SP1 and WPF if there any suggestions in that arena.
Must be free or open source.
Any recommendations?
You might want to take a look at GraphViz which is being distributed under CPL (i.e. free of charge). It is not exactly for .NET/WinForms but can be useful anyway. The library's main purpose is to visualize graphs (and dependency diagram is effectively a [directional] graph). You can use it to either get an image (graph layout) or an array of points (coordinates for you items).
Too late for the questioner but perhaps interesting for researchers:
NShape
NShape is an Open Source diagram designing framework for .NET
WinForms. Software developers use NShape to integrate diagramming
capabilities into their applications. Using NShape, applications let
users view, annotate, modify and create diagrams like flow charts,
wiring schemes or project charts. NShape is open source and has a dual
license which allows it to be employed for free in open source
projects and for a license fee in commercial projects.
Did you try the CodeProject article series by Sukram:
WPF Diagram Designer
Here is some references which might be interesting for you:
Diagrams.NET
Diagram.NET is a free open-source
diagramming tools written entirely in
C#.
Put Diagram.NET WinForm Control into your form and, like Microsoft Visio®, the user can draw shapes and links. With some code you can control, change, add and delete these elements.
Microsoft Chart Controls
The samples environment for Microsoft
Chart Controls for .NET Framework
contains over 200 samples for both
ASP.NET and Windows Forms. The
samples cover every major feature in
Chart Controls for .NET Framework.
They enable you to see the Chart
controls in action as well as use the
code as templates for your own web and
windows applications.
OpenDiagram
Open Diagram is the definitive open source .net diagramming
component library for the .Net framework winforms environment.
Use Open Diagram to add interactive data visualizations to your .net
applications.
I have tried it with WinForms, works very well.
I have similar request as yours. Here's one open source solution for drawing diagrams. It's from Microsoft and samples written in C#.
https://github.com/Microsoft/automatic-graph-layout
Here's one that renders to HTML5 (You can easily extend to Visio) from GridWizard/Github
Source code: https://github.com/gridwizard/SimpleFlowDiagram
Wordpress doc: https://gridwizard.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/simple-c-library-to-render-graph-to-flowchart/
Downside is, you need a viewer to display HTML5. Alternatively, SimpleFlowDiagramLib already calculate Node.x and Node.y - you can render it to Winform/WPF yourself (but then you need to code rendering yourself)