How to create a timeline by horizontally stacking nodes with variable width?

Question

Hi

I would like to create a timeline using Fat Arrow - Right node, as shown below.

For that, I have created three custom properties:

1. President's name (text)
2. Duration in office (decimal)
3. Commenced (decimal) ---> The year count begins with x=0

Then I imported an Excel file (xls) with the following data.

IINW the Properties Mapper also is set correctly, as sown below:

But I am unable to get proper result:

1. All 16 nodes get piled up on top of each other: They do not appear side by side to form a bar.
2. The name of the president does not appear on any of the nodes.

What could be going wrong?

 

 

 

Answer 1

After importing the data from Excel, what type of custom properties have been created (see "Edit" -> "Manage Custom Properties" for type information)?

What settings did you choose on the "Presentation" tab of the Excel import?

What happens if you explicitly run the properties mapper manually after importing the data from Excel?

That said, I would like to mention that you will not get a nice result even if everything works "properly".
Since you are mapping "Duration" to node width, all your nodes will be very, very small and provide nowhere near enough space for the labels. Moreover, there are some nodes with "Duration" specified as 0. However, properties mapper will not reduce the width of nodes below 1. Thus the node following a 0-duration node will overlap its predecessor.

Comments

yes, I know about the problems in rendering! :)
I had planned to deal with them later, once I get some encouraging results.
For example,
* I can add a column to multiply the actual duration with a large factor to get a workable width
* I can move the label outside the node and rotate it by 90 degree
   (I haven't really tried this feature, but I think it is possible)
* Where duration is 0, I will replace it with a small number to get a thin node. (the only penalty is that I have to declare that the diagram is not to scale.)

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I had not paid attention to the presentation tab, but when I checked it, it was blank. I put a tick in the check box. Now I get a stack of nodes with labels, but they are somehow arranged in a diagonal arrangement. (I am still referring to the unmodified excel file: I haven't yet carried out the changes described above.)

[Please let me know how to insert image in comments, so that I can post the screenshot here.]

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Re:

[Please let me know how to insert image in comments, so that I can post the screenshot here.]

You need to answer, then edit the answer to convert it into a comment.

Of course, you could also edit your original post to add additional screenshots!

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Well, I was looking for an "answer" link below your answer, but it appears that once you (or anyone else) answer, no one can post answers to that answer. Everyone is allowed only to add comments.

BTW you are applying formatting even in comments (e.g. the bold text). How is that done?

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Ok, I failed to see that the Circular tab was selected in the Presentation tab by default, and I did not change that. That's why the nodes were distributed in slanting formation.

I changed that the hierarchical, and the nodes got re-arranged in horizontal line, but with large gaps inbetween.

Finally I changed the layout to "none", and the nodes got lined up horizontally.