Skip to main content

Editing edge paths

VisuallyJs supports editing the path of edges for each of the different connector types that VisuallyJs ships with. The selection of the appropriate editor tool is managed automatically by VisuallyJs.

Setup​

In a diagram, edge path editing is enabled by default (as long as the diagram is not marked editable:false). If you want to disable path editing, without marking the diagram readonly, you need to set the editable flag in the edges section of your render options:

import { newInstance } from "@visuallyjs/browser-ui"

const model = newInstance()

const surface = model.render({
  edges: {
    editable: false
  }
})

Path editing begins when the user taps on an edge, and stays active until they click on whitespace, or perform some other operation such as editing a cell,

Each editor offers a different interface for working with path edits.

Orthogonal editors​

The orthogonal editor draws a handle on each segment of an edge, which can be dragged at 90 degrees to the direction of travel of the segment, ie. for a vertical segment, you can shift it horizontally, and for a horizontal segment you can shift it vertically.

When you are shifting a segment, if you release the mouse at such a point that the segment you just dragged forms a straight line with a previous or subsequent segment, the segments are coalesced into one. If you drag some segment such that an existing segment ceases to be a straight line, the segment is split and new segment is inserted between them.

Static anchors​

In this example we use an edge editor to edit the path of some edge whose anchors are at fixed points (in this case, AnchorLocations.Bottom and AnchorLocations.Top). We've also already called startEditingPath(..) on the surface for you:

Dynamic anchors​

If the edge you are editing has dynamic anchors, the edge editor will draw a placeholder at each end of the edge, which you can drag around to any supported position for the given anchor - here we use the AutoDefault dynamic anchor, which is an anchor that has one position on each of the four sides of the element on which it resides:

When you start to drag an anchor placeholder, you'll see VisuallyJs adds an element indicating an allowed position to which that anchor can be moved.

Continuous anchors​

If your edge is using anchor of type AnchorLocations.Continuous (which is the default), when you drag an anchor placeholder VisuallyJs will highlight the candidate face for the anchor relocation:

Avoiding vertices​

By default, the orthogonal connector editor will avoid getting into a situation where either end of the connector intersects the source or target vertex. This is best illustrated with a picture:

Orthogonal connector avoiding vertices - VisuallyJs - flowcharts, AI Agent builders, chatbots, bar charts, decision trees, mindmaps, org charts and more

info

This functionality is only applied to the segments at either end of a connector. If you have some connector path that intersects the source or target vertex somewhere in the middle of the path, the path will not be re-routed to avoid the vertex.

If you want to switch this behaviour off, you can do so in the connector spec:

connector:{
    type:"Orthogonal",
    options:{
        vertexAvoidance:false
    }
}

This will be the resulting behaviour:

Orthogonal connector intersecting vertices - When you've reached the limits with ReactFlow, VisuallyJs has what you need

Your users can still route the connector around in this setup but they'll have to move a lot more segments.

Straight editors​

The straight editor draws a handle at the end of each segment of an edge, which can be dragged in any direction to alter its location. You can split a segment by clicking and holding the mouse at the location you wish to split the segment, and then dragging the new handle.

To delete a handle, click on it.

Static anchors​

In this example we use an edge editor to edit the path of some edge whose anchors are at fixed points (in this case, AnchorLocations.Right and AnchorLocations.Top). We've also already called startEditingPath(..) for you:

Dynamic anchors​

If the edge you are editing has dynamic anchors, the edge editor will draw a placeholder at each end of the edge, which you can drag around to any supported position for the given anchor - here we use the AutoDefault dynamic anchor, which is an anchor that has one position on each of the four sides of the element on which it resides:

When you start to drag an anchor placeholder, you'll see VisuallyJs adds an element indicating an allowed position to which that anchor can be moved.

Continuous anchors​

If your edge is using anchor of type AnchorLocations.Continuous, when you drag an anchor placeholder VisuallyJs will highlight the candidate face for the anchor relocation:

Smoothed connectors​

When you have smooth:true set on your connector, the editor functions slightly differently - the drag handles now represent the location of the control points for the splines that make up the Bezier curve, and when you drag them, the control points are moved accordingly. Also when smooth is set, the editor draws a guideline for each segment.

Bezier editors​

The bezier editor draws two handles - one for each control point in the connector. They are placed where the control point is, and as you drag them around the control points are updated accordingly.

Static anchors​

In this example we use an edge editor to edit the path of some edge whose anchors are at fixed points (in this case, AnchorLocations.Bottom and AnchorLocations.Top). We've also already called startEditingPath(..) on the surface for you:

QuadraticBezier editors​

The QuadraticBezier editor draws one handle, located at the connector's control point. As you drag the handle around, the connector's control point is updated.

Overlays​

You can supply a set of overlays to render on an edge for the duration of the edit, for example:


diagram.startEditingPath(someEdge, {
  overlays:[
    {
      type:LabelOverlay.type,
      options:{
        label:"editing...",
        location:0.1
      }
    }    
  ]
})

With this call we get a label overlay at location 0.1:

Delete button​

The edge path editor offers a shortcut method to attach a delete button:

diagram.startEditingPath(someEdge, {
  deleteButton:true
})

This results in:

This will delete the edge without prompting the user. If you'd like to hook into the edge deletion, you can provide an onMaybeDelete function.

diagram.selectEdge(someEdge, {
  deleteButton:true,
  onMaybeDelete:(edge, connection, doDelete) => {
      if (confirm(`Delete edge ${edge.id}`)) {
          doDelete()
      }
  }
})

Note that the operation is asynchronous - in the example above we use the windows prompt method, but you can invoke the doDelete callback at any stage.

Clearing path edits​

Edits made to a path can be cleared via clearPathEdits method on the Diagram object.

clearPathEdits (edgeOrLink:Edge|DiagramLink):boolean