[news.eclipse.tools.gef] Non-binary connections - how do you model them?

[Barry Lay <blay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a requirement for a non-binary association between objects, and 
am curious about how one might model it graphically.  As an example, it 
is not unreasonable to stipulate that "a is between b and c" or "d is 
the minimum of e, f, and g".

The GEF connection mechanism doesn't lend itself to multiply-ended 
connections so I am inclined to think that this would require an 
association object to represent the relationship with several 
point-to-point connections between it and its participants.  It would be 
nice, however, to have that relationship automatically (graphically) 
ride the middle of the connections around like a label when the leaf 
nodes are moved, as part of the connection router.

I recall that VisualAge had connections to connections to provide 
parameters to associations; this isn't quite like that but does move in 
that direction.  I haven't tried doing this sort of thing in GEF.  Is 
this a reasonable thing to do?  How do you specify the attachment point 
for an inbound connection on a connection?

On a related note, if a proper EditPart would be needed to represent the 
relationship it would be nice if its figure could be non-rectangular to 
better match common practice in diagramming.  Are there examples of this 
about?

Thanks,
Barry