The rope example is as good as you can get almost, you just need to add more sections to make it more "realistic". There are settings in the physics behavior you can also play with to get a better "feel".
You can also use events to find the last piece of the rope, pin an object top it, which can than be "sticky".
For swinging you just need to apply a force or impulse to the last piece to make is swing.
This is off the top of my head.