[ericinca]

I'm trying to draw a simple diagram with boxes and arrows. Every time I try to a line between two elements, diagram rearranges my elements on the page, and I have to say, not in a better way. Undo doesn't seem to undo properly either.

How do I turn this feature off? I looked around in the menus and preferences but didn't find anything obvious to do this.

Any help would be much appreciated.


Eric

[Joel]

Sounds to me like you've got automatic layout turned on -- You can disable it in the Diagram Layout Inspector.

Keep in mind that the built-in templates in the "Brainstorming" and "Organizational Charts" category have this turned on by default, those in "Drawing" and "Space Planning" do not.

Hope that helps,

[ericinca]

Thanks, that helps. I just discovered that option a few minutes ago. :) However, undo doesn't work quite right though...

[Brian]

Originally Posted by ericinca

However, undo doesn't work quite right though...

What do you mean?

[kpizzle]

To Clarify: Diagram Layout Inspector in under "canvas" "diagram layout" on the inspectors box on the right.

And by Undo doesn't work quite right, I think Ericinca means the following:

If you have an org chart style layout, then you move a box, the joining lines move to follow the connected boxes, keeping parent and children connected. But if you move a box to somewhere you don't want to, when you click undo it only moves the box back, and not the joining lines.

For me, if you then manually move the red dot on the end of the line to rejoin the parent, the lines do not rejoin in the same way. Previously there was long line from the parent, and then it split horizontally very close to the children. Now the split is half way between the parent layer and the child layer, and I have to manually re-define the path of each line to avoid collisions, very frustrating.

[whitenk]

I am using omnigraffle 5 to make a sitemap (using the org chart style).

Every time I move or delete something, it's like the whole page rearranges and I have to start all over.
I have turned off the automatic layout but it's still doing it.

I got it to stop somewhat by creating groups of various sections, then the objects in that group tend to move less...though sometimes the entire group gets thrown across the page.

It even does it when I am just trying to create a group....I can group several objects but then if I click on a line to include in the group, then entire page rearranges.
Undo does nothing, still leaves the page totally screwed up. The only solution i have found is to save after every correct step, then if it gets messed up, close without saving to revert back.

needless to say this is not fun. surely there is a better way. please help.

[achrysalis]

Ericinaa

I'm working on an extensive sitemap using the plain org chart style, and I'm having the same results. Every so often changing one box will cause others throughout the page to rearrange themselves. Connections are maintained, but I have to drag the boxes back into vertical alignment.

I've found that once I complete a 'branch on the tree' locking it seems to help.

A