yEd supports dockable windows, a convenient feature to easily organize and arrange the various tool windows
that provide additional information about the graph and its selected elements within the drawing canvas.
The tool windows include:
| Tool Window Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Overview | Presents a scaled view to the entire graph. |
| Structure View | Presents the graph structure as a tree view. |
| Properties View | Present the properties of the currently selected graph element(s). |
| Palette | Contains both predefined and also customized nodes and edges. |
| Context Views | Predefined views that particularly display structural aspects of specific parts of a diagram. |
Additionally, the option dialogs of both layout algorithms and tools can also be used as tool windows. The section “Toggling the Presentation State of Option Dialogs” explains the conversion of an option dialog into a tool window and vice-versa.
Tool Window Functionality
Tool windows support a number of convenient features to organize yEd’s working space and streamline
the user experience. Arrangement of tool windows can be vastly customized by
moving and docking them to other places inside the application’s frame.
Also, all tool windows can optionally be set to auto-hiding state where they take
up only minimal space and show up only on demand.
Additionally, the Overview window can also be converted into a so-called floatable window that can be placed
independent of the application’s frame.
Resetting the arrangement of tool windows to their factory positions can be achieved using yEd’s Windows menu. Also, closed tool windows can be displayed via the items within this menu or their respective shortcut keys.
Moving and Docking Tool Windows
A tool window can be moved to another place within the application’s frame via a mouse drag gesture
starting at its title bar.
By default, the borders of either another tool window, the drawing canvas, or the application’s frame
itself present facilities for horizontal or vertical arrangement of the moved tool window.
A rectangle that represents the moved tool window’s outline serves as an indication whenever a valid arrangement is possible. An indicated arrangement can be achieved by finishing the mouse drag gesture, i.e., by releasing the mouse button. The tool window then automatically docks to the respective borders.
Instead of docking to any of the borders, tool windows can also be arranged in a tabbed fashion by finishing the mouse drag gesture on the title bar of a tool window.
Tool Window Auto-hiding
Tool windows support the notion of auto-hiding where their representation is minimized to a small mouse-sensitive area at either side of the application’s frame. Whenever the mouse is over the area, the tool window smoothly slides in from the side and becomes visible again.
Toggling the Presentation State of Option Dialogs
Option dialogs for layout algorithms or tools can optionally be presented stand-alone or as a tool window.
To toggle between the two presentation states, each stand-alone option dialog features a ‘Dock’
button that converts it into a tool window. Vice-versa, each option dialog that is presented as a tool
window can be converted to its stand-alone form by clicking the rightmost button in the upper-right corner:
