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Home - General / All posts - Creating leaders and arrows for layouts in Manifold 9
drtees
203 post(s)
#15-May-23 15:57

The ability to create leaders for point labels in Manifold 8 is a nice feature even if one could not adjust the width of the leader. The leaders were visible on screen, but would get lost on a printout if there was a background image involved. I got around this by creating my own labels and leaders within a layout. Additionally, I would take a layer that contained an arrow, drag it onto the layout, and adjust the rotation so that I could connect a text box with a feature on the layout.

I tried to recreate the arrow layer concept in Manifold 9 (9.0.180.0). The result was far less than I expected. Either the arrow, when dragged onto a layout, appeared as a line (no arrowhead), or a very short arrow that I could not adjust or rotate. Obviously, what was working in Manifold 8 does not work the same in Manifold 9. Is there a better way to create leaders and arrows for use in a Manifold 9 layout that allows me to have the same ability to fine tune as I have with Manifold 8?

oeaulong

521 post(s)
#15-May-23 16:52

by leaders do you mean the callout lines that could be generated when moved? You can do something similar with a second Geom field. This Geom may be moved from the main Geoms location. Then you make a calculated field generating lines from the original to the new location, if they are not already coincident. This way you have a label based on the second Geometry field, and the callout drawing out of the calculated lines.

This way the move to point/label local gets updated as does the line geometry. It also gives you more than just a hairline rendering of the callout line.

drtees
203 post(s)
#15-May-23 20:23

Thank you! I had a feeling that the functionality was there. Now I have to start playing more with the schema, which I haven't done much of yet. I can assume (I hope) that I will have more formatting control over the line, including making it an arrow.

I may come begging for more help on this!

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#16-May-23 08:34

(I hope) that I will have more formatting control over the line, including making it an arrow.

Yes, lines can be styled with arrows. See Style: Lines.

wvayens108 post(s)
#16-May-23 19:47

I can't believe that's been sitting there all this time....thanks for pointing it out!

drtees
203 post(s)
#16-May-23 20:59

Next question. Do I need to create point data for this to work? I am still a bit fuzzy on how to create the calculated field.

Sloots

678 post(s)
#17-May-23 11:47

Have a look at this example. I have created two geom fields, one that is the exact location of a town (geom_centroid), the other is the location of the label (geom_anchor). A calculated field of type geom is created with this expression:

GeomMakeSegment(

  GeomCoordXY([geom_centroid], 0)

  , GeomCoordXY([geom_anchor], 0)

)

Based on that I have created another layer that draws a line from the original location to the location of the label. If you move a label to a desired position, the line will be updated automatically.

Hopefully this gives you enough inspiration to tackle your problem.

Chris

Attachments:
callout-example.map


http://www.mppng.nl/manifold/pointlabeler

wvayens108 post(s)
#17-May-23 13:21

Gave me some inspiration, thanks! Will save some time every time I decide to fine tune my callouts!

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