aiSee User Manual: GDL Node Attributes

This section describes the whole list of node attributes. Each attribute is listed together with its type and default value.

bordercolor: Color Entry,
default is the value of the textcolor attribute for nodes
Specifies the color for node borders. For the available Color Entries, see section Colors. See also node attributes color and textcolor.

borderstyle: Style, default is solid
Specifies the line style used for drawing the borders of a node. The following Styles are available:

borderwidth: Int, default is 2
Specifies the width of the border of a node in pixels.

color: Color Entry,
default is white
Specifies the background color of a node. For the available Color Entries, see section Colors. See also node attributes textcolor and bordercolor.

focus, no value, no default value
Sets the focus for the node for which it is specified. After startup this node is centered in the graph window. The focus can also be specified for summary nodes. It goes without saying that the focus attribute should appear only once in a graph specification.

fontname: "Font File",
default is the default vector font drawn by turtle graphics routines
Specifies a pixel font different from the default vector font and used for drawing the node labels. This font is given by the name of the aiSee Font File containing the font description, e.g. a 12-point Helvetica Bold font can be specified via fontname: "helvB12". Note: If the font file is not in the current directory the environment variable AISEEFONTS has to be set to the directory containing the font description files. For the available Font Files, see additional fonts.

height: Int
default is (node label height) pixels
specifies the height of a node including the border. See also width.

horizontal_order: Int, default is -1 (i.e. no default)
In a hierarchical layout, this attribute specifies the horizontal position of a node within a level (see vertical_order). Nodes specified by horizontal positions are ordered according to these positions within levels. Nodes without this attribute are inserted into this ordering by the crossing reduction mechanism (see crossing reduction).

Note: Connected components are handled separately during crossing reduction, thus it is not possible to intermix nodes of different connected components in one ordering sequence. For example, one connected component consists of nodes A, B, C and another of nodes D, E, all nodes being positioned at the same level. Then, for instance, it is not possible to specify the following horizontal order at level 0: A, D, C, E.
Note further: If the algorithm for downward laid-out trees is used the specified horizontal order is retained only within nodes that are children of the same node, i.e. in case of downward laid-out trees it is not possible to specify a horizontal order for the entire level.

iconfile: "File",
no default value
Specifies the bitmap file (in PNG, PBM, PPM, or raw PPM format) to be displayed in the node. If the bitmap file to be displayed is not in the current directory the environment variable AISEEICONS can be set to the directory containing the bitmap file. For details, see icons.

importance: Int, default is 0 (which actually means infinity)
This is the central attribute when it comes to filtering in fish-eye views as it enables the importance of a node to be specified via an integer. Low integers signify less important nodes which are filtered out first by a filtering fish-eye view. High integer numbers signify nodes that are important, their being rarely filtered out. A value of 0 represents an infinite importance, the result being that these nodes are never filtered out. This attribute also exists for summary nodes of folded subgraphs, see importance.

info1: "String", default is "" (empty string)
info2: "String", default is "" (empty string)
info3: "String", default is "" (empty string)
Enable three additional text fields to be specified for a node. The same set of attributes exists for subgraphs/summary nodes (see graph attribute info1). These additional information fields can be selected interactively from the Information submenu.

When exporting graphs to SVG format, a URL can be specified in the info3 field of a node that is visited when the user clicks on that node in the SVG image. The URL specification has to be in the format info3: "href:URL", meaning that if the content of an info3 field does not start with href:, it will be interpreted as a normal information field rather than as a hyperlink. See example.

aiSee supports the following optional hyperlink attributes:

These attributes can be specified in any order after the URL specification in the info3 field of a node (as of aiSee 2.1.96, the URL specification is optional). The specifications must be separated by semicolons. Examples:

info3: "href:http://www.aisee.com/svg/"
info3: "href:javascript:blabla(42,'Hello world!')"
info3: "href:http://www.absint.com;
        target:_blank; onClick:foo('bar')"
info3: "href:#;
        onMouseOver:showInfo('humpty dumpty');
        onMouseOut:showInfo('')"
// as of aiSee 2.1.96:
info3: "onMouseOver:showInfo('humpty dumpty');
        onMouseOut:showInfo('')"
info3: "onMouseDown:foo(1);onMouseUp:bar(2)"

If the URL and/or the values of the hyperlink attributes themselves contain semicolons, they must be escaped by using the special character \fi059 instead. If the URL contains ampersands, they may not be escaped. aiSee will automatically convert them to & when exporting the graph to SVG. Examples:

GDL specification

SVG output
... example.asp?a=b&x=y ... ... example.asp?a=b&x=y ...
... example.asp?a=b&x=y ... ... example.asp?a=b&x=y ...
... example.asp?a=b\fi059x=y ... ... example.asp?a=b;x=y ...
... example.asp?a=b;x=y ... ... example.asp?a=b

If aiSee spots a mouse event handler specification in the GDL source of a graph, it automatically includes a reference to an external JavaScript file when exporting the graph to SVG:

<svg:script xlink:href="SVGFileName.js" language="JavaScript">
</svg:script>

This allows JavaScript functions and global variables to be conveniently specified in the external JS file rather than in the SVG file itself. Thanks to this approach, you can easily make changes to your graphs and re-export them to SVG without having to copy & paste JavaScript code from old SVG files into new ones each time.

See our SVG gallery for example graphs.

invisible: yes or no, as of aiSee 2.1.94,
default is no
yes forces a node to be hidden after the layout calculation. This attribute becomes useful when specifying dummy nodes.

label: "String", default is "" (empty string)
Specifies the text to be displayed inside the node. This text may contain control characters, e.g. \n (newline character), that influence the size of the node. See character set for more details. If no label is specified, the value of the node attribute title is used.

level: Int, default is -1 (i.e. no default)
This is a synonym for vertical_order.

loc: { x: Int y: Int }, no default value
Specifies the location of a node, i.e. the x and y coordinates in relation to the coordinate system of the graph. The origin is in the upper left corner. For example, the specification loc:{x:100 y:200} places a node at location (100, 200) in the coordinate system.

The location specification is not valid unless locations are specified for all nodes, otherwise aiSee calculates appropriate x and y coordinates according to the layout algorithm chosen.

margin: Int, as of aiSee 2.1.89,
default is 3 if the value of borderwidth is > 0,
0 if the value of borderwidth is 0
Specifies the horizontal and vertical offset between the border of a node and its label in pixels. Useful for rectangular nodes only.

scaling: Float, default is 1.0
Specifies the scaling factor of a node. This attribute is normally used to change the node text size. See also shrink / stretch.

shape: Shape, default is box
Specifies the Shape of a node. The following Shapes are available:

Please note that drawing ellipses is slower than drawing other shapes.

shrink: Int, default is 1
stretch: Int, default is 1
Specify the shrinking and stretching factor of a node. The values of the node attributes width, height, borderwidth and the size of the label is scaled by ((stretch / shrink) * 100) percent. The scale value can also be specified by the node attribute scaling.

The actual scaling factor of a node is determined by the scale factor of a node in relation to the scale factor of the graph, i.e. if the scaling factors are 2.0 for the graph and 1.5 for the node, the node is scaled by a factor of 3.0 as compared to normal size.

textcolor: Color Entry, default is black
Specifies the color for text labels of nodes. If no bordercolor is specified, then this attribute also specifies the color for node border. For the available Color Entries, see section Colors. See also node attribute color.

textmode: center, or left_justify, or right_justify, default is center
Specifies the alignment of text within a node.

title: "String", no default value
Specifies the unique string identifying the node. This attribute is mandatory for the node specification.

useractioncmd3: "String", default is "" (empty string)
As of aiSee 3.beta, enables a command to be specified that can be executed by clicking on the node in the User Actions Mode.

vertical_order: maxlevel or Int, default is -1 (i.e. no default)
In a hierarchical layout, this attribute specifies the vertical position of a node. maxlevel tries to position the node at the maximum calculated level. Generally speaking, the vertical position of a node is called level or rank (see rank assignment), with the node attribute level being a synonym for the attribute vertical_order.

All nodes of level 0 form the uppermost layer (if the graph orientation is top_to_bottom). Nodes of level 1 form the second layer, etc. The level specification is not in effect unless automatic layout is being calculated. Layout is calculated automatically if there is at least one node without a specified location (see loc attribute for nodes and loc attribute for summary nodes).

The level specification may conflict with a near edge specification, because the source and target node of a near edge have to have the same level. In this case, the level specification of the source or the target node of the near edge is ignored.

width: Int
default is (node label width) pixels
specifies the width of a node including the border. See also height.