Dot file support in Desktop version

Question

Hello,

I am working on some graphs creation using Graphviz DOT format and I would like to have better looking graphs using Yed tool.

Files format are in DOT file (.gv or .dot) and I validated that we can generate a nicer result using Yed live but not Yed desktop version. Since I cannot just upload some graphs due to privacy reason I would like to be able to generate it through the local desktop version.

I found this old ticket mentionning the issue: https://yed.yworks.com/support/qa/73/import-of-dot-files

I tried to convert my DOT file using gv2gml command but it does not seem to preserve clusters + it does not render as in Yed live.

Regards

Answer 1

gv2gml creates (as the name implies) GML files. yEd desktop does support GML (besides GraphML and a couple of other graph exchange formats).

yEd Live, on the other hand, only supports GraphML files. You need to first "convert" your GML file into a GraphML file using yEd desktop. (I am surprised that you were trying to do that, though, since you stated that you do not want to use yEd Live.)

Answer 2

Hi,

all features of yEd Live are purely client-sided (except for the cloud services and GitHub uploads which must be triggered explicitly by the user).

Also note the About dialog of yEd Live:

You own your data: everything that you produce using this app, will stay yours. We don't even get to see your data. The data is stored in your systems (your hard drives, local memory, or your own cloud storage that we don't have access to) and your browser's local storage. Your files will never be sent to our servers or servers that we have access to unless you send them to us via email or actively via other feedback mechanisms.

Thus there shouldn't be any privacy concerns regarding yEd Live running in the browser. Because you don't upload your file anywhere, it always remains in your system.

Regarding the Graphviz import in yEd Live: This is pretty raw and rudimentary. It mainly supports the diagram structure and a few style properties, but all in all it supports only a very small subset of the Graphviz features.

There are currently no plans to support dot files in yEd Desktop.

Regards