Select a connector and pick its Direction and Influence in the right panel, or right-click it and press [1] to [4] to set the arrow.
Where: Space Studio › Right panel (connector selected) · Connector right-click menu · New Connection dialog · Keys: [1] [2] [3] [4] while the connector's menu is open
What it is
Every connector carries two settings of its own, whatever its type. Direction is the arrow: which way the relationship runs. Influence is the pull: how strongly the connector draws its two nodes together while the graph settles. Direction is about meaning, and influence is about layout.
How to use it
Direction
Four choices, in the right panel as arrows and on the right-click menu by name:
- Outgoing [1]: the arrow points from the first node to the second.
- Incoming [2]: the arrow points back towards the first.
- Bidirectional [3]: arrows both ways.
- None (association) [4]: no arrow, just a link.
Right-click a connector and press the number while the menu is open, or click the option. A new connector starts with the direction its connector type suggests: an arrow for a Unidirectional type, none otherwise. See Connector Types.
Which node you happened to pick first doesn't carry any meaning. Only the direction does, so set the arrow to say what you mean.
Influence
Three strengths, each drawn differently so you can tell them apart on the canvas:
- Normal: full pull, a solid line.
- Weak: a quarter of the pull, a dashed line.
- Weakest: barely pulls at all, a dotted line.
Set it in the right panel with the connector selected, or in the New Connection dialog as you connect. A Weakest connector is still a real, drawn connection. It just doesn't drag its two nodes towards each other.
Where else you can change them
- The Change Connector dialog, from Change connector type on the right-click menu, has the same Influence, Direction and Label controls.
- With several connectors selected, the right panel lists them and changes their type together.
Tips
- Influence works on the live physics, the gentle settling you see after you add, move or connect something. Dark Energy, Layers and Group lay out by the connections themselves, whatever their influence. See Dark Energy and Layers.
- Pathfinder ignores direction. A route is about being connected, so it runs against an arrow happily. See Pathfinder.
- Each change of direction or influence is a step you can undo.
How this helps you
- Use direction whenever "who does what to whom" matters: who reports to whom, which system feeds which, where the money goes.
- Use Weak or Weakest for bookkeeping links, "see also" or "mentioned in", so they don't pull unrelated parts of the structure into each other.
- Leave substantive relationships on Normal, so the things that really belong together end up together.
Related
