Placing rectangles directly on top of eachother

Question

Hi All,

How can I place rectangles directly on top of eachother? Like this (but with a single line instead of the double line):

My goal is to create a new kind of shape, that I can fill with text and different background colors, that I could use in my diagrams.

I have tried to use class objects, removing the circle, but it is not really similar to what I want.

Answer 1

Hello A.,

• Would this example be suitable?

@startuml
rectangle r_alias [
rec_1

--

rec_2
]
@enduml

→ See on server

If that can help,
Regards,
Th.

Answer 2

I'm not sure whether your example picture renders properly for me, it looks more like a table of some sort.

But going with your "My goal is to create a new kind of shape, that I can fill with text and different background colors, that I could use in my diagrams.", I thought I'd mention this option of PlantUML that lets you create complex shapes by embedding a raw graphviz html node in the PlantUML node.  (I took the example from https://graphviz.org/doc/info/shapes.html)

@startuml
skinparam ComponentStyle rectangle
rectangle n2 [
{{
digraph foo {
    b [shape=none, margin=0
  label=<
<TABLE BGCOLOR="bisque">
  <TR><TD COLSPAN="3">elephant</TD> 
      <TD ROWSPAN="2" BGCOLOR="chartreuse" 
          VALIGN="bottom" ALIGN="right">two</TD> </TR>
  <TR><TD COLSPAN="2" ROWSPAN="2">
        <TABLE BGCOLOR="grey">
          <TR> <TD>corn</TD> </TR> 
          <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="yellow">c</TD> </TR> 
          <TR> <TD>f</TD> </TR> 
        </TABLE> </TD>
      <TD BGCOLOR="white">penguin</TD> 
  </TR> 
  <TR> <TD COLSPAN="2" BORDER="4" ALIGN="right" PORT="there">4</TD> </TR>
</TABLE>>
  ]
}
}}
]
rectangle n3 [
{{
digraph foo {
struct3 [shape=record style=filled, color=yellow, fontcolor=blue, fillcolor=red, label="hello\nworld |{ b |{c|<here> d|e}| f}| g | h"];
}
}}
The 'record' node is simpler
to code, but you can't individually 
colour different boxes.
]
[n1] --> n2
n2 --> n3
@enduml

Unfortunately I don't think you can get away from the 'box within a box' look.

Comments

Note from future self.  To get rid of the white border around the inner box, set a graph-level parameter of pad=0:

​digraph foo {
  graph [pad=0]
  ...