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Customise your views

Repositioning Nodes

Once selected, you can reposition nodes in a view by dragging while holding down your mouse.

Moving Nodes Between Views

Nodes can be sent from one view to another using the Copy and Paste buttons located in the context menu.

Laying Out Nodes in a View

Lay out nodes in a view using one of the following options, located in the Layout menu of the tool bar:

  • Horizontal - hierarchical layout of nodes where all edges point towards the right-hand side of the view
  • Vertical - hierarchical layout of nodes where all edges point downwards in the view
  • Force Directed - clusters nodes based on their connections
  • Spectral- positions nodes based on the "graph spectrum"; can be used to visualise the structure of the graph. Nodes with similar connections are placed close together. Nodes with identical connections will be placed on top of each other; note this is not true for the Force Directed layout above.
  • Bipartite - nodes are organised into two distinct groups, where nodes within the same group are not connected
  • Radial - Nodes are placed on concentric circles around a given root node
  • Collapse Leaf Nodes - stacks nodes with the same set of connections
  • Align by Neighbors - positions selected nodes at the mean position of their neighbors along either the x or y axes.
  • Degree - positions nodes based on how many successors/ predecessors the nodes have where x = number of predecessors in the graph, and y = number of successors in the graph.

Note that pressing a layout button without any nodes selected will lay out all nodes in the currently-active view. To lay out subset of nodes, simply highlight them first, and then select your desired layout. Nodes with no edges will lay out in a circular pattern by default.

Rotating Node Layouts in a View

You can rotate sets of nodes around their central point using the Rotate tool in the Layout menu. Simply enter the degrees by which you wish to rotate the node layout, and complete the action by selecting ROTATE.

Sorting a View

Nodes can be sorted in the following ways:

  • Colour - order selected node by their colour
  • Degree (Out) - order selected nodes by the number of successors they have
  • Label - order selected nodes alphabetically
  • Weight - order successor nodes by their edge weight from a predecessor

Filtering Views

To filter the nodes in a view, select your filter node and right-click on the view title, then press Set Selected Node as Filter. The nodes which are not successors of your filter node will then be removed from the view.

Adjusting Node Label Size

The size of node labels visible in a view can be scaled using the Node Label Size button in the view tool bar.

Adjusting Node Label Angle

To adjust the angle of node labels, use the Node Label Size button in the view tool bar.

Toggle Edge Visibility

Edge visibility can be toggled using the Show / Hide Edges button in the view toolbar.

Assigning and Relabelling View Axes

A node can be assigned as the x-axis or y-axis in another view by highlighting the node you wish to assign to an axis, then right-clicking on the destination axis label and selecting Set Selected as Axis Node. The nodes in the view will then distribute in space according to their edge weight from the axis node.

Note that when sending a node to a view as the x- or y-axis, any nodes currently in the view which are not successors of this node will be removed from the view. You can re-label the axes by clicking on them and typing in your desired label.

Toggling Grid Lines and Axis Scale

Toggle between the following three grid-line states using the grid icon in the view menu:

  • Off - The view is a blank canvas
  • Axis Ticks only
  • Axis Ticks + Grid Lines

By default, view axis will have fixed and equal scale. If you wish to turn on default scaling, hit the scale icon in the view menu. Once equal-scaling is off, you can alter the scale of each axis independently by hovering your mouse within the border and zooming in/ out (brushing up and down with two fingers).

Toggle Maps Background

If the x and y axes represent latitude and longitude, you can enable a Google Maps-style background in your view by clicking the globe icon in the view toolbar.

Toggle Datetime Axes

If the x-axis represents datetime features, you can convert the values displayed along the axis ticks into a datetime format by using the datetime toggle located in the view toolbar.

Renaming Axes and View Titles

To change an axis name, select it in the view, change the view name in the pop up that appears and press enter. To rename the title of the view or axes, simply click on the titles and type in your desired text.

Removing Nodes from a View

You can remove any selected node from their current view using the Remove From View button located in the Node Tools menu.

Undo

To undo your most recent actions in a view, press the Undo button on the LHS of the left-most Tool Bar.

Last update: 2024-06-06