Tektosyne Library

The Tektosyne Library for the .NET Framework offers a variety of types and methods to supplement the .NET Base Class Library, including the following:

• Collections: generic “braided” tree, generic quadtree, extensions of BCL collections
• Sorting: standard sorting algorithms and binary search for IList<T> collections
• Natural string sorting, i.e. numerical sorting of digit-only substrings
• Geometric primitives: Point/Vector, Size, Line, Rect with various coordinate types
• Geometric algorithms: convex hull, line intersection, point in polygon, Voronoi diagram
• Graph algorithms: A* pathfinding, path coverage, flood fill, line of sight
• Planar subdivision represented as doubly-connected edge list, with pathfinding support
• Rectangular grid of regular polygons (squares or hexagons), with pathfinding support
• An implementation of the Mersenne Twister pseudo-random number generator
• Mathematical helper methods, including a library of Fortran 90 functions
• Wrappers for the Simple MAPI protocol to send e-mail messages with attachments
• Hosting a NumericUpDown control with error provider and tooltip in a WPF window
• Manipulating a WriteableBitmap’s pixel data with or without a secondary buffer
• Specialized exception types and ThrowHelper methods for common error scenarios
• Many other utility types & methods that I needed at one time or another

Please refer to the class reference for details on the library contents. The library itself and all examples in the documentation are written in C#.

The Tektosyne Library for the .NET Framework and its documentation are © 2002–2010 by Christoph Nahr but available for free download under the MIT license.

Limitations

The library targets desktop applications running with “Full Trust”. If you are targeting a more limited permission set, such as Silverlight deployment, you will need to test the desired classes and methods for compatibility with that permission set.

Moreover, the library’s IL code is not verifiable. Mostly due to its Win32 interoperation and bitmap manipulation methods, the library is compiled in “unsafe” mode. If you require verifiable IL code for security reasons, you must pull out the stuff you need and recompile without the “unsafe” flag. Several classes are also not CLS compliant due to the use of unsigned integers.

Orthodox .NET programmers will also disagree with my coding style. While I’m using FxCop to check my code, I take the liberty to ignore any warnings I consider irrelevant. In particular, many types contain public or protected instance fields where a property wrapper makes no sense (and possibly impedes performance if the JIT compiler fails to inline the property accessors).

System Requirements

To deploy a program that uses the Tektosyne library, you need a Microsoft Windows system capable of running the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile. This includes Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 SP2, and Windows Server 2008 & R2 with Internet Explorer 5.01 or later.

To create a program that uses the Tektosyne library, you also need either Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 or the free Microsoft Windows SDK 7.1 for Windows 7 and .NET 4.0. Both have the same system requirements as the .NET Framework 4.0 itself, but the Windows SDK also requires that you first install the full .NET Framework 4.0 – not just the Client Profile.

The Code Package also includes a suite of unit tests. You will need the free NUnit unit testing framework if you wish to run them.

Project Information

Consult the following links for more information on the Tektosyne library. Copies of the ReadMe and WhatsNew files are included with the code package.

• The ReadMe file contains the copyright notice and technical details on the project.
• The WhatsNew file contains the annotated version history of the project.

We also have some executables that show the Tektosyne library in action:

• The Code Package itself contains a small test program for various features, called Tektosyne.GuiTest.
• Hexkit is a larger application that exercises most Tektosyne classes. The Hexkit User’s Guide also describes the pathfinding algorithms, applied to grids of regular polygons.

Tektosyne.GuiTest contains a useful feature that helps with the creation of tiled maps based on real-world terrain. Choose Geometry: Save & Print Grid to show a dialog that allows you to save or print grids of arbitrary size that are composed of squares or hexagons of any side length and orientation.

You can print a grid on transparent film and overlay it on an atlas page to determine your map layout, or you can save a grid to a PNG file and use your favorite paint program to superimpose it on an image file with your real-world map. This is how I created the “Roman Empire” and “Battle of Crécy” demo scenarios that ship with Hexkit.

Download Files

The current version of the Tektosyne library is 5.1.2, released on 14 July 2010.

Code Package

The current code package is Tektosyne.zip (1.00 MB). This is a standard ZIP archive containing subdirectories and long file names. The archive includes all source code files, the XML documentation file generated by the C# compiler, and the library and test projects precompiled in release mode.

Class Reference

The current class reference is Tektosyne.chm (5.97 MB). This file was created from XML source code comments using the free Sandcastle help compiler. To view the class reference, you need Microsoft’s HTML Help Viewer (which should be present on most systems).

Unlike many other freeware projects, all types and members in the library are fully documented, excepting only private fields. There are no empty or boilerplate comments in the class reference. Moreover, I’ve added implementation notes, usage hints and examples where appropriate.

What’s up with the silly name?

Hey, do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a pretentious Greek name that isn’t already taken?

The project was originally called the “Toolbox Libary” for the .NET Framework. Unfortunately, this was not a very distinctive name. You couldn’t use the library with any project that defined its own Toolbox namespace (not inconceivable by any means), and some people even thought the library was related to the Toolbox window of the Visual Studio IDE.

Tektosyne is sufficiently unique to avoid such confusion. Moreover, ή τεκτοσυνη (hē tektosynē) means “the art of building” which seems not entirely inappropriate for a toolbox library.