Unable to open svek.dot in OmniGraffle

Question

I'd like to be able to open the temp file svek.dot in OmniGraffle in order to try getting a better (manual) layout for some diagrams which otherwise are very complex and wide.

When I use the -keeptmpfiles option, I get a svek.dot file, but OmniGraffle doesn't like it - it reports: 

*** setObjectForKey: object cannot be nil (key: normal)

 

Line 7: sh0008->sh0009[arrowtail=none,arrowhead=none,minlen=0,color="#00000E",style=invis];

 

a sample plant uml which generates this is:

@startuml

title OmniGraffle

package "Outer" {

node host\nProduction  {

[service1\n4.4.3.1] as [service1.host] 

[service2\n3.0.87] as [service2.host] 

[service3\n1.7.0_51] as [service3.host] 

[service4\n3.0.87] as [service4.host] 

[service5\n4.4.3.1] as [service5.host] 

[service6] as [service6.host] 

}

' a comment

}

@enduml

 

 

Answer 1

Hello,

If dot succeed in reading this svek.dot file, it means that it's a OmniGraffle bug. Maybe you could ask support on their forum ?

But beyond this, even if you manually modify the svek.dot file, there is no way to reintegrate it back to PlantUML, so I'm not sure how you are going to use it.

We agree that on large diagram, the automatic layout is not always perfect. Have to tried to use "invisible" link to improve it ?

You can have a look on [hidden] in http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/qa/?qa=2104/use-case-diagram-how-to-control-alignment-of-use-cases

Comments

The diagrams are generated by querying a database, and for the most part they are small. There are two which are very large and I wanted to play with manual layout.
I'll submit a bug report to OmniGraffle.