Bias to shortest for Left-Right layouts

[Jeff]

I’d really like a “shortest edge” bias for left-right/top-bottom layouts that minimizes the length of edges regardless of where they appear in the diagram. I rarely have a diagram where everything is best visualized shifted to all the way to the left or right, there’s usually a one-off in the middle in either direction that gets stretched way out of view.

Left bias, showing disagreeable node far separated from its closest relative

Same diagram, right bias, showing disagreeable node

Why not something like this? (faked with Photoshop by moving E and H closer starting from the left bias version, which shrinks the length from B to I appropriately)

[jackvinson]

This would be a nice resolution for complaints I hear from my colleagues. This happens to some extent when incremental layout is switched off the default (can never remember which is “on” and which is “off”), but it would be nice to have as a new default / option.

[Wolf (Wolf McNally)]

Thanks for the suggestion. This is something I would like to resolve in a future version of Flying Logic.