Introduction

GVedit is a Graphviz tool for creating, viewing, editing and processing DOT files. It allows users to set attributes of graphs with dialogue boxes and save them for future use. GVedit users can also take advantage of the simple instant previewing feature of the program.

Menu system

GVedit's main menu bar provides basic file options such as Open, Save, Save As and simple editing operations such as Cut, Copy and Paste. Most of the common commands also have standard keyboard shortcuts. Below you will find a list of the menu items and brief information on each of them.

File:

New: Creates a blank text window. You can use it to write a description of a graph in the DOT language. New graphs are not saved to disk until you save them manually.

Open: Opens a file dialogue box to select and load a DOT file into the editor. Each file is opened in a new window and does not affect other open graphs.

Save: Saves the active graph to disk. If the active graph is new and does not have a name, it opens a Save As dialogue to allow you to specify the file's name before saving.

Save as: Opens a Save As dialogue to save the active graph. You can save a graph under different names but you will always be working with the most recently saved graph.

Close: Closes the active graph window. If there are any unsaved changes, you get a dialogue box asking if you want to save the changes before closing the graph.

Edit:

Undo : This command rolls back the last thing that you have done within the active graph.

Cut : Removes selected text and keeps it in the clipboard.

Copy: Copies selected text to the clipboard.

Paste: Inserts the text from the clipboard into the cursor position on the active graph.

Find: Opens the find dialogue box to allow you to locate desired text in a graph.

Graphviz

Run: Processes the active graph with the last attributes that were used for it. If the active graph has never been processed before, it opens the settings window.

Settings: Opens the settings window. Details of this window are given below.

View

Cascade: Sets the style for handling multiple windows to cascade, in which each new window overlaps the previous one.

Tile: Sets the style for handling multiple windows to tiling, in which the open graph windows partition the root window.

Help

Help: Opens a manual page describing how to use this program.

Graphviz on net: Opens a browser window on the Graphviz home page.

About GVedit: Provides version information about the program.

Tool bar

Under the menu bar, there is a toolbar with five buttons on it. These buttons are nothing but shortcuts to some menu items. Each button has a tool tip attached to it to indicate its purpose.

Working with multiple graphs; the active graph.

GVedit allows you to have multiple graphs open at the same time. At any time, there is a single active graph. Anything you do using either the GVedit menus or the settings window affects the active graph. When you go to the settings window, you always see the settings of active graph. The settings of each graph are maintained separately.

To make a graph active, click on its window. The background of the active graph window is white while all others are gray.

Settings window

With the settings window, you can select the layout engine, set the output type and file, and set any attributes that are available with the Graphviz release installed on your computer.

Layout engine: Graphviz provides five different graph layouts. You can select the one which best fits your needs. More information about these layouts can be found at the Graphviz home page

Output file name: This field allows you to specify the output file name. You can either type in the name, or use the small button by the text box to open a file dialogue box. This field corresponds to the –o option of Graphviz.

Output file type: This drop down list allows you to select the output file type. The output file name's extension is changed accordingly. This field corresponds to the –T option of Graphviz.

Graphviz bin folder:You usually do not need to enter anything here. During the Graphviz installation, locations of the Graphviz files are stored in the registry and GVedit retrieves it from there. If, for some reason, Graphviz files are not where they are supposed to be and GVedit can not find them, you can edit this information manually.

Preview Output file: If this box is checked, GVedit creates a low-quality preview of the output and shows it in a separate window. It is a convenient way to preview the results without executing another viewing program.

Apply cairo filter: If this output format is supported by the cairo library, this box becomes active. If checked, output will be generated using the cairo library rather than the default renderer.

Attributes: On the lower half of the settings window, you will see two dropdown lists, one small text box, and a larger text editing area. GVedit processes the contents of the large box as additional, generic graph, node or edge attributes. (These correspond to the –G, –N, and –E command-line options of Graphviz.) You can either type directly in the large text box, or use the drop down lists to pick an allowed scope and one of the common attribute names. For details of these attributes, refer to the page of Graphviz attributes.

If you specify an attribute using the drop down lists, you need to click on the Add button to register the attribute. If you do not click on Add button, the attribute that you entered will not be added to the large box, hence will not be processed.

As an example, assume that we would like to have a graph drawn with a green background. First, click on the scope list and select graph; then click on the name list and select bgcolor; and then type green to the value box. Finally, click on the Add button to send the attribute to large box.

Belowe the Add button is a Help button. Clicking on this will open a browser window on the Graphviz page describing the supported attributes.

Under the large box, there are 3 small buttons, plus Cancel and OK buttons. The first button is used to clear the attributes box; the second one is used to load an existing text file into the attributes box; and the last one is used to save the attributes to a text file for later use. The Cancel button closes the window without processing anything; the OK button processes the active document file with the settings on the screen and closes the settings window. If you check the preview check box, you will see the preview of the graph layout on the screen.

Console window

At the bottom of the main window, there is a console window where you can see the results of your actions. This provides a trace of your layout actions, showing the Graphviz command corresponding to the active graph's settings. It also displays warnings from GVedit, as well as the output of the executed Graphviz programs. By right clicking on the console window, you will get a menu providing some additional functions, such as clearing or saving the console logs.