Layout Options

Layout options refer to the style of the diagram that is rendered in the diagram editor, Rule Debugger, and Dependency panel.

Note: Additional Layout Options

Various options affect the appearance of a diagram, no matter what layout is chosen. (The hierarchical layout offers additional options.)

Circular Layout

This layout is useful for ontologies where nodes tend to have a clustered (ring or star) structure (where each main node has a starburst of related nodes).

Orthogonal Layout

The orthogonal layout style uses only horizontal and vertical links. Diagrams are drawn quickly.

The algorithm places highly connected nodes closer together, resulting in a more compact diagram. Even when lines overlap, the algorithm ensures that they are still easy to follow. Because this style has no hierarchical or other visual constraints, the resulting diagrams are often very clear.

Symmetric Layout

The symmetric layout style looks for and emphasizes the symmetries in a project topology. It can produce a pleasing visual result, if there are no reasons to arrange the nodes. For example, there is no hierarchy or ring-clustering inherent in the structure of the nodes.

See Configuring Diagram Preferences and Properties for a property that affects whether symmetric or hierarchical layout is used as the default, depending on number of edges.

Hierarchical Layout

The hierarchical layout style indicates dependencies by positioning the nodes at different levels. The hierarchical layout style is useful when you need to show precedence relationships in the ontology.

Hierarchical layout is the default. However, see Configuring Diagram Preferences and Properties for a property that affects whether symmetric or hierarchical layout is used as the default, depending on number of edges.You can use Layout Preferences to determine in the direction of the hierarchy.

Preferences and options specific to the hierarchical layout are:

  • Orientation Options (Edit > Preferences)—Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Right to Left, Bottom to Top
  • Routing Options (View > Layout)—Orthogonal or normal (polyline) routing
  • Routing Options (Edit > Preferences)—Orthogonal or polyline routing.

Incremental Layout

Choose Incremental Layout if you want the main arrangement of the diagram to remain stable when you make changes to your project and only re-route the entities and links that have changed since the last rendering.

Keeping most things in the same place makes it easier to see how changes you have made in the project affect the diagram.

If you want to refresh the entire diagram, click the desired layout option. The program has greater freedom to optimize the layout. The result is likely to be a more pleasing arrangement.

To perform an incremental layout update, do one of the following:

  • Select View > Layout > Incremental Layout
  • Click the Incremental Layout button on the toolbar