Is there a good reason why connectors aren't centered and have white backgrounds

Question

Hello 

Suggestion: Is there a good reason why the text on arrows/connectors:
A) is not centered

Surely in most settings tThis would make the text easier to read... particularly for "Yes" "No" on flow diagrams /BPMN diagrams etc

B) does not have have a white background  ?
Surely the majority of diagrams are on a white background

Background:

In order to minimise the learning curve for new users of yEd, extremely careful thought needs to be applied to default settings. And as a new user of yEd, and having looked at a number of alternative ways of generating flow diagrams, I like to think I have a fresh pair of eyes that should be valuable around here.

In short I have the eyes of the Mainstream user rather than the eyes of the Early Adopter!

Trying to help

J

P.S. For clarificaction, what I mean is:

Mainstream User psychological profile:
"My time is valuable: want things to work, save me time and be obvious.") 

Early Adopter profile:
"I like trying out new things. I am plugged in and know all the latest stuff. I tolerate complexity and even bugs, so long as it's new and interesting technology..."
 

 

 

Comments

To get clear, having good defaults that suit the substantial majority of users is absolutely crucial. It is one of the critical things that distinguishes really successful consumer software from "also-rans".

Trying to help.... But is anyone listening?

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Yes, we are "listening to" - or rather reading - your suggestions. And we are appreciating your suggestions.

To answer your first question: Edge labels are placed next to their owner edges by default because in our experience the "next to edge" placement is much more often used than the "on edge" placement. (E.g. take a look at the yEd Gallery. None of the featured diagrams that use edge labels use the "on edge" placement.) With that in mind, it also makes sense for edge labels to have no opaque background because that works for all diagram background colors, not just white.

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> it also makes sense for edge labels to have no opaque
> background because that works for all diagram background colors,
> not just white.

I hear you but I'm not so sure. To assign best defaults we'd need to know what %age of users have what %age of their diagrams on white. If over say 80% my point arguably stands.


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Meanwhile, here is a better idea!
You guys are clearly pretty smart developers so try this:

Rather than having a fixed background colour behind the text on an edge, how's about you also give us the option of having an opaque "Auto background"?

i.e. When rendering the diagram
1. Work out what the background colour is behind the edge
2. Allocate that colour to the background of the edge's text

That way, edge text would always 'float above' the edge line in a colour that matched the background. This would make the text stay extremely readable.

i.e. We would no longer have the text on an edge having arrows/lines visually "crashing through it", but rather they would go "under" it. And it could keep up with any changes in background.

I concede that a (very small) number of users may want to highlight some of their edge texts (e.g. with a yellow background) so perhaps it would be a good idea to still allow the background to an edge's text to be set manually. However it is clear that this would be a small minority of uses and so surely "Auto background" should be the default.  :)