Link lines are drawn lines and arrows which show an underlying DoView link exists. These drawn link lines are arranged on a page by dragging the highlight boxes (green and red) which appear when a drawn line is selected. To move a link line you need to drag one of the highlight boxes, you cannot drag the link line itself. DoView has some smart line arranging features which make arranging link lines fast and easy.

 

Lines and arrows are drawn by selecting the Insert Link, and Draw Straight (or Bent) Line options from the small back down-arrow on the Tool Bar. For information about how to insert drawn lines to represent links between steps on a page see the Section on Links and Drawn Lines.

 

Tip: When working with drawn lines, you should make sure that you are in the right viewing mode. From the View menu select the Show links and drawn lines mode. For further information see the Section on Views for Links and Lines.

 

Note that DoView can work in a Left-to-Right mode or a Bottom-to-top mode depending on the direction in which you want to draw the model. See the Section on model direction. The examples below are from Bottom-to-top mode but the same approach applies to Left-to-Right mode.

 

Dragging green highlight boxes

In the screenshot below, a drawn line representing a link between Step One and Step Two has been selected (by clicking on the link line). Note the highlight boxes in green, these are used to drag the line when rearranging it. The red highlight boxes are the connection points of the line to the steps - these can also be dragged to any position around the border of the steps. Note also that the normal DoView link icons (an inverted V on the bottom border of Step Two and two small lines sticking up from the top border of Step One also always appear when you select a link line). The horizontal segment can be dragged up and down the screen by holding down a left-mouse click and dragging either of the green boxes up or down.  

 

 

Dragging red connection point highlight boxes

In the screenshot below, the red connection point has been dragged out to the left-hand side of the border around Step One (dragging using a left-mouse click). When this happens, an additional segment is automatically put into the line so that it now has three green highlight boxes (rather than just the two shown in the screenshot above).

 

Adding and removing segments

In the screenshot below, an further segment has been added using a right-click on the link line and selecting Add segment This new segment is close in towards the left hand side of Step One. Note that there are now four green highlight boxes. You can add as many extra segments as you like to make complex link line arrangements.

 

 

Straight line

To turn you bent line links into straight line links, simply remove all segments apart from one (right-mouse click on the link line and select Remove segment).This has been done in the screenshot below. An easier way of making a straight line link is to just select Insert link, and drawn straight line from the link options list accessed from the small down arrow next to the Link Tool on the Tool Bar.

 

'Clamping' a segment to the top of a step

The screenshot below shows 'Clamping'. When a link line is first drawn, the horizontal segment 'clamps' to the top of the step from which it is drawn. This makes it much faster to move steps around without having to separately adjust the spacing of the link line segment immediately above them. In the left-hand section of the screenshot below, the horizontal segment of the link line is locked in position just above Step One. If you, for instance, drag Step One down the screen, the 'clamped' horizontal link line segment will move together with Step One down the screen and remain in the same clamped position just above the top of Step One.

 

To 'Unclamp' the segment, just drag one of the green highlight boxes up and away a little from Step One. From then on, if you move Step One up or down the screen, the horizontal segment of the link line will remain where it is and not move with Step One. The result of this is shown in the screenshot below. If you reposition the horizontal segment back close to the top of Step One (or if you drag it close to the bottom of Step Two) it will automatically reclamp.

 

 

 

Aligning link lines

The best way of aligning link lines where a number of steps linking to a higher step is to insert the steps you want (double click on a white space on a page),  draw the link lines you want (see Section on Links and Drawn Lines) and then just use the adjust command (select all the steps you want to adjust, right click on the one which is at the right level and select Layout > Alight top).

 

This will result in the alignment of the link lines shown in the screenshot below.