08 Configure Labels - Graph Builder Tutorial [yFiles for HTML]

Configure label styles and placement

In this tutorial step, you will learn how to configure GraphBuilder to place the labels of the graph elements at a desired position and configure their style.

Note	This step is optional when building a graph with GraphBuilder. If you do not want to add labels to your graph, you can proceed with the next step.

In this step, we will use a simple company ownership diagram.

const data = {
  nodeData: [
    {
      id: '0',
      name: 'Investment Capital',
      type: 'Corporation'
    },
    { id: '1', name: 'Melissa Barner', type: 'Trust' },
    { id: '2', name: 'Monster Inc', type: 'Corporation' },
    {
      id: '3',
      name: 'International Group',
      type: 'Trust'
    }
  ],
  edgeData: [
    {
      id: '0',
      sourceId: '1',
      targetId: '0',
      ownership: 30
    },
    {
      id: '1',
      sourceId: '2',
      targetId: '0',
      ownership: 60
    },
    {
      id: '2',
      sourceId: '3',
      targetId: '0',
      ownership: 5
    }
  ]
}

Configure node labels

Label placement

The label placement can be defined either using a default configuration or using a layout provider on the LabelCreator.

A default placement will apply to all labels of the LabelsSource for which no other placement is specified. In this example, as a default, we place the labels at the center of the node as follows:

typeLabelCreator.defaults.layoutParameter = InteriorLabelModel.CENTER

In the case where you want to determine the label position based on specific properties of the data, you can use a layout parameter provider which will provide the information about the desired label placement.

In this example, we want to create two labels for each node. The first label will be bound to the type property of our dataset and will use the default placement, i.e., at the center of the node. The second label will be bound to the name property and will be placed at the top side of the node, stretched over the node’s width. To achieve the desired placement, we create the layout provider as follows:

// position the label on the top of the node
nameLabelCreator.layoutParameterProvider = (): ILabelModelParameter =>
  InteriorStretchLabelModel.NORTH

Label styles

Similar to node/edge styling, there exist three ways to style labels. Specifically, you can set defaults, style bindings and style providers on the LabelCreator.

In our example, we will first create a default style for all labels for which we will not set a specific style. More precisely, we use the DefaultLabelStyle and align the text to the center of the node.

nameLabelCreator.defaults.style = new DefaultLabelStyle({
  horizontalTextAlignment: 'center'
})

Next, we will visualize the labels bound to the type property with a different font style. To achieve this, we have first to make sure that we do not share the same style to all labels.

// disable the sharing of the label style
typeLabelCreator.defaults.shareStyleInstance = false
// create a new binding to assign a new font
typeLabelCreator.styleBindings.addBinding('font', () => 'bold 12px Roboto')

For the labels bound to the name property, we want to use a different background color based on the type of the associated node. For these of type Trust, we will also add an icon using the IconLabelStyle.

// disable the sharing of the label style
nameLabelCreator.defaults.shareStyleInstance = false
// create a provider that will assign a new style, based on the type property
nameLabelCreator.styleProvider = (data): ILabelStyle => {
  if (data.type === 'Corporation') {
    return new DefaultLabelStyle({
      backgroundFill: orange,
      horizontalTextAlignment: 'center'
    })
  } else {
    return new IconLabelStyle({
      icon,
      iconSize: new Size(14, 14),
      iconPlacement: InteriorLabelModel.WEST,
      wrapped: new DefaultLabelStyle({
        backgroundFill: pink,
        horizontalTextAlignment: 'center'
      })
    })
  }
}

Label size

Using the same approach, the label size can be configured either using size bindings or using a size provider. The following code shows how to set a different size to the labels of type Trust.

// set a new size for the labels with type 'Trust'
typeLabelCreator.preferredSizeProvider = (data): Size =>
  data.type === 'Trust' ? new Size(70, 15) : new Size(100, 15)

// set different widths for nodes with type 'Trust'
typeLabelCreator.preferredSizeBindings.addBinding('width', data => {
  return data.type === 'Trust' ? 200 : 100
})

Configure edge labels

Following a similar approach, we can configure the edge labels. In this example, we bind the label text to the ownership property and select a layout parameter that will position the label near the middle of the associated edge path. Regarding the style, labels that show ownership values greater than 50% are drawn in red-color.

// configure the position of the label
edgeLabelCreator.layoutParameterProvider = (): ILabelModelParameter =>
  new EdgePathLabelModel({
    autoRotation: false
  }).createDefaultParameter()

// configure its style
edgeLabelCreator.defaults.shareStyleInstance = false
edgeLabelCreator.styleBindings.addBinding('textFill', data => {
  return (data.ownership ?? 0) > 50 ? red : grey
})

Note	Please have a look in this tutorial step’s demo code in `configure-labels.ts` and play around with the sample data and try different layout and styling for the labels.