options for family tree combined with other relationships?

Question

I can create a family tree in the format that yEd requires. However, I would like to add friendships and work relationships, which look awkward with an extraneous "family" node added. Are there any other layout options that I should consider? Is there any way to specify that family relationships should result in nodes close together while other relationships can be further apart? I can add whatever data would be necessary to communicate these differences to the layout engine.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I do not think that yEd offers a layout algorithm that is very well-suited for the kind of diagrams you want to create.
You could try yEd's hierarchic layout. However, that is a general purpose algorithm that has no special notion of families or individuals like the family tree algorithm has. If you go that route, try the following approach:

1. Create your diagram.
2. Run hierarchic layout with options "Select Elements Incrementally" und "Use Drawing As Sketch" on tab "General" disabled.
3. Manually adjust the positioning of families.
4. Run hierarchic layout a second time, but with "Use Drawing As Sketch" enabled.

In step 3, your modifications do not need to be pixel perfect - they just need to be roughly at the right position. The second run of the algorithm will result in nice alignments.