"Structure View": description and functionality misleading?

Question

In my opinion the description of the 'structure view' is misleading and it's functionality doesn't fit the expectations of most users.

For example: I have a simple graph of parents, children and grandchildren (see attached image). The use of 'layout -> hierarchical' shows the given view.

It's a tree, right? The description of the 'structure view' says: "This tool window presents the hierarchical structure of the graph shown in the active editor window using a tree-like view." (http://yed.yworks.com/support/manual/structure.html)

So I would expect that the 'structure view' reflects the hierarchical structure of my graph in a tree-like view, but it does not! It still shows a plain list.

That is very confusing. Furthermore modifying the structure "by dragging a (group) node's entry onto another entry" is not possible at all. It turns out that is only supported for groups. Is this behaviour intended or is it a bug?

 

Answer 1

The hierarchical structure of a graph is the relationship between group nodes and their child nodes. Your sample graph has no group nodes, i.e. it is not hierarchically organized. Thus the 'structure view' displays all of your nodes as top-level nodes - as it should.

You might argue that the 'structure view' should have been called 'hierarchy view' or hierarchic structure view', though.

Finally, you are right "by dragging a (group) node's entry onto another entry" should have been "by dragging a node's entry onto a group node or the graph entry". I will update this sentence accordingly.

Comments

The wording in the correspondig section of  the yEd Manual has been adjusted accordingly.