Node labels disappear when node (and font size) is big

Question

Hi all.

I want to create a big node with a label fitted the node, but the label doesn't want to behave well.

Case: Open yEd. Create node (round, rectangle), it has label "1". Select the node. Set Width and Height of this node to 150 000. Choose Tools>Fit label to node (Vertical border: 6; Horizontal border: 6; Strategy: Resize font), press OK.

Press "Show entire graph" - can see node, but don't see label.

For this node Font size property equals 100199.

I tried to play with font size (like set it to 100-40000), but then at some point of zooming out it just disappears. I can still select it (till the font size is not higher than 32767 - with 32768 it doesn't event select the label) and change properties with double-click on the middle of the node, but when selection is gone - the label is also gone.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

 

inb4: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client release 5.6 (Tikanga), Linux 2.6.18-238.5.1.el5 x86_64

Java: java version "1.6.0_17"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.7.10) (rhel-1.20.b17.el5-x86_64)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 14.0-b16, mixed mode)

yEd: 3.10.1

Answer 1

yEd uses "level of detail" rendering. If the zoom level decreases below a certain threshold value, the application will no longer display expensive (with respect to rendering performance) details such as labels (because text rendering is very expensive). This is necessary to achieve acceptable performance when displaying lots of diagram elements at the same time. Moreover, at low zoom levels normally sized text (i.e. font size between 8 and 14 pt) is so small, it is no longer readable anyways.

It is possible to adjust the threshold value mentioned above. To do so, go to "File" -> "Preferences", tab "Display", setting "Paint Details Threshold". Changing the value to 0 effectively turns off this feature (i.e. details will be painted always).

 

Aside from that, I strongly recommend to run yEd on Oracle Java instead of IcedTea. Oracle's Java implementation is more robust and its rendering engine performs better than IcedTea's implementation.

Comments

Dear thomas.behr,
Thank you very much for your reply!
It works, and it looks very nice =)

Concerning java... Is there any way to set up path to java to use? Uncomment and set parameter INSTALL4J_JAVA_HOME_OVERRIDE in the yEd.sh file?

Thank you!

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You can replace the yEd shell script created by the installer with a very simple custom script:

#!/bin/sh

app_dir=`dirname $0`;
/path/to/oracle_java/bin/java -Xmx512m -jar $app_dir/yed.jar $@

(This assumes the script is placed in yEd's installation directory.)

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Thank you!