Connecting Boxes

OmniGraffle
#1

Hi All

I’ve just started using Omnigraffle today and I’m having a problem that’s driving me nuts.

I’m trying to create an IA diagram for a website. I create a box and then add a child. In the content dialogue I can see my boxes with the hierarchy that I want. What I want to see on the diagram is all connecting points eminating from the bottom centre of the parent, splitting off and going to the top centre of each of the child boxes.

What happens is that I’m getting some coming from the side, some from the bottom… they just seem to do their own thing and when I try to adjust them they snap to something that I don’t want so I get a right dog’s breakfast rather than a nice neat upside down tree.

Can someone point me in the right direction to neaten it up please.

Best regards
Andy

#2

Set your default box to have two magnets, one N, one S. (Use the Connections Inspector in the Properties inspector panel.) Defaults are set by option-clicking a tool.

Set your default line style to Orthogonal.

This will basically do what you want, but not quite. All children are added to the right of previous one; the parent isn’t centered over its children. You can move it there, but then you’ll probably have to mess with the turning points for the lines to get them lined up properly, That’s a general problem with orthogonal connectors: OG never bends them where you’d like.