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Customise your views

Moving Nodes

Reposition your nodes within a view simply by hovering your mouse over the node or label, then click to drag them.

Nodes can be moved between views by:

  1. Drag and dropping them across to the new view.

    Nodes moved to the new view are positioned where you dropped them.

  2. Right click and using the copy & paste functions.

    Nodes copied and pasted to the new view are position exactly where they were in their original view.

Layouts within your View

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

  • Vertical - hierarchical layout of nodes where all edges point downwards in the view.
  • Horizontal - hierarchical layout of nodes where all edges point towards the right-hand side of 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.

FYI

Changing the layout without having selected any nodes will lay out ALL nodes in the active view. To lay out a subset of nodes, simply highlight them first, then choose 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. Nodes must be selected first before they can be rotated.

Sorting Nodes in 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 on your node of interest, first select the node you want, then right click on the view you want to place the filter in and select Set View Nodes > Set Selected Node as Filter. The resulting view will only show nodes that are successors of your filter, the rest will be removed from the view.

Alternatively, simply drag the filter node and drop it in the filter icon located at the right hand side of the view.

You can tell if a view has been filtered if the filter icon has a blue outline. Click on the icon to see what the view has been filtered on, and delete whatever filters you would like to have removed. The view will adjust accordingly.

FYI

A view can be filtered on one or more features and follow the OR logic gate, so all nodes that connect to any of the filters will remain.

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 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. Alternatively, drag your desired node and drop it into the x or y axis label area of the other view.

FYI

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.

FYI

Removing nodes from a view is different from deleting a node. The latter removes the node from the graph entirely, while the former only removes the node from the current view.

Undo

To undo your most recent actions in a view, press the Undo button on the LHS of the left-most Tool Bar. The undo function is limited to 10 most recent actions.

Last update: 2025-01-03