Collapsing and expanding simple trees in OmniGraffle
 

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Is there a better way to show simple trees at varying levels of collapse and expansion ?

Subgraphs seem unsuitable - turning a sub-tree into a subgraph changes its position in the sibling sequence used by automatic layout. Also subgraph labels seem to remain visible regardless of collapse state.

Placing successive generations/levels of the tree on different layers (and toggling the visibility of these layers) seems better but a little complex ...

[links between shapes are hidden intelligently, and auto-layout adapts quite gracefully, but time (or Applescript automation) seems to be required to set up all the layers.]

Is there something simpler that I am missing ?

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OK, at the scripting level, simply moving particular levels, sets of levels, or sub-trees in and out of a single special 'hidden' layer, and then re-triggering automatic layout, seems to work OK.

But it would be good to have something built into the GUI, to prevent me from reaching for my old copy of [URL="http://www.inspiration.com/"]Inspiration[/URL], which is still quicker than OG for typing an outline swiftly, switching back and forth between an outline view and a graphic view, and hoisting or collapsing particular subtrees, or collapsing to particular levels.

All of which is where I happen to spend quite a lot of the day :-)

Hello! I just downloaded omnigraffle, and I'm curious how you achieved the retrigger of auto-layout in your script, as what you describe is exactly what I want. If you could share your script with me I would be very grateful. THanks so much!

The OG applescript library contains a [I]layout[/I] command, and shapes have a [I]layer[/I] property.

(I don't have a general body of code that I can share for this, unfortunately).