Import Excel: Group Name not importing correctly

Question

I have the following data in Excel (this is a much simplified example):

Name	Group	Parent
A	X	B
B	X	D
C	X	B
D	Y
E	Y	D
F	Y	D
G	Z	D
H	Z	G
I	Z	G
J	Z	G
K	Z	G

I import it as an Edge List and a Node List, using:

• Edge List
  • Name as the Column of Source IDs
  • Parent as the Column of Target IDs
• Node List
  • Name as the Node IDs
  • Group as the Group Node IDs

I get a tree, with the correct nodes imported, correct parent-child edges, and correct groups.

But I want the Group value to be the label at the top of each Group. When I look at the data for each node, I see that in the regular Nodes the "Name" value is empty, when it should be the value in the first column. In Group Nodes, the Group value (X, Y, Z) is in the Name attribute, instead of in the Group attribute. I think this is incorrect and might be a bug.

I thought perhaps it was something to do with importing groups, so I try again without identifying the Group Node IDs:

• Edge List
  • Name as the Column of Source IDs
  • Parent as the Column of Target IDs
• Node List
  • Name as the Node IDs
  • Group Node IDs BLANK

This time I get the tree again, with no groups as expected. Checking the node data attributes, I see that Name is correctly set, Group is correctly set, and also Parent is correctly set.

Is there a way around this issue? I have a large tree to import from Excel, and I really want to be able to generate and import the node names and their groups, and be able to label the groups automatically.

Answer 1

I was not able to reproduce the problem with the current version of yEd (which is 3.16.2.1 as of this writing).

My import settings were:

and

which resulted in

as expected.

Please note, the unlabeled node at the bottom is due to line 5 (Name: "D", Group: "Y", Parent: "") in your spreadsheet. The edge list import does not support "omitting" edges by not specifying a target (or source) ID. Each and every line in the edge list data range will create an edge.

If there should not be any outgoing edges for node "D", you need to structure your data in a different way. E.g.

will result in

Comments

Hi Thomas,
I have 3.15, and my company security prevents me installing and upgrading. I downloaded the latest Java file, and run that, but the Excel import feature seems not to work correctly - perhaps due to it being the Java file version.
I don't have time to test this further, but I will come back to it.