The Menus:
By choosing 'New' from the file menu, you can create an new and empty graph window. Selecting 'Open' lets you open a graph file you saved before (or one of the examples included in the distribution). To save a graph, you have 'Save' and 'Save as...' for your needs. 'Save' just saves the active graph and 'Save as...'' lets you choose a filename for that graph you want to save. By hitting 'Quit' in the file menu, you can quit Graph'O->Mat. You will be asked if you want to save the not yet saved graphs, so no data will be lost.
For using the edit menu, you have to create or load a graph first. To do so, just go to the menu 'File' -> 'Load' and load one of the example graph files in the Graph'O->Mat home directroy (for example C:\Graphomat\JGraph\G01). Now you can edit your graph in an easy way. Left click on a vertex to select it and once again to deselect it. You can cut the selected vertices, copy and paste them. Graph'O->Mat takes care of the connections for you. If you cut a connected vertex, the edges will be deleted for you, so no dangling edges will cause problems. By clicking 'Select All' you can select the whole graph and by clicking on 'Deselect All' you can deselect all selected vertices with only one click.This menu lets you choose between different modes. Your actual mode is visible in the statusbar on the bottom of the main window and in the menu itself. If you are in the 'Edit Node' mode, you can move the nodes (= vertices) and therefore adjusting the graph for your needs. In the 'Add/Delete Node' mode you can add nodes by clicking on an empty space in the active graph window. If you click on an existing node, the node will be deleted. In the 'Add/Delete Edge' mode, adding edges is as easy as deleting them. Just click on a vertex and then on the vertex you want to connect with the formerly clicked vertex. If these vertices are already connected, then the edge is deleted.
This menu is the most important feature of Graph'O->Mat. It helps you to place your graph in different manners. In this section, only a short explanation on the functionalities of the algorithms is given. You can find detailed information on these optimization algorithms on the Algorithm page.
The first option named 'Standard' looks for minimal edge-lenght without moving the vertices. The 'Circle' option places all vertices in a circle and applies the 'Standard' algorithm. 'Centered 2-Circle' is a variety of the circle algorithm adn does the same thing with a vertex in the middle and two shifted circles instead of only one. The 'Cross' algorithm takes care of the number on crossings in the graph and tries to decrease them. The 'Spring' algorithm simulates the edges as if they were springs and moves the vertices to a better distribution. Same thing does the 'DynaSpring' algorithm, but as the name already says dynamically and has therefore more efficiency in most cases.
You cannot just say that one of these options gives you the best result. It really depends on the kind of graph you have to place. Best thing is to try the different algorithms and to sometimes repeatedly choose the 'Standard' or the 'Cross' option to get best results.
If you choose Help from this menu, you'll be showed a little HTML help (well you already did that!) which contains information on this program and on functionalities explained in this manual. The About Dialog contains some information on the programmers and the version of Graph'O->Mat.