About Connectors
Dynamic
connectors versus straight connectors
Connections are used in many types of Edraw drawings. You create connections by attaching, or gluing (glue: A property of shapes that causes them to stay connected even when one of the shapes is moved. When you attach a connector to a shape, you glue the connector.), one-dimensional (one-dimensional shape: Either a straight line you draw using Edraw drawing tools or a shape that has a beginning point and ending point and can be glued between two shapes to connect them.) shapes called connectors (connector: Any one-dimensional shape that can be glued between two shapes in a drawing to connect the shapes.) to two-dimensional (two-dimensional shape: A shape that has four selection handles that you can use to resize the shape proportionally.) shapes.
Edraw connectors stay glued when you move the shapes they're attached to. For example, when you move a flowchart shape that is connected to another shape, the connector adjusts to keep the two shapes connected. The type of connector you use and the type of connection, or glue, you use determine how the connection behaves.
Connectors show the relationships between shapes in a drawing. For example, in an organization chart, a manager shape has a connector between it and the shapes representing the manager's direct reports.
The easiest way to
create a connection between two shapes is to draw it
using the
Connector tool
.
You can also use the connector shapes found in many Edraw
library. Connector shapes in library are
often tailored to specific drawing types associated
with those library. Some connector shapes don't
necessarily look like lines.
Connectors have
endpoints
that you attach, or glue (glue: A property of
shapes that causes them to stay connected even
when one of the shapes is moved. When you attach
a connector to a shape, you glue the
connector.), to other shapes to show a visible
connection between the two shapes. When you
reposition shapes, they stay connected.
A connector has a
begin point
and an end point
.
Begin points and end points turn red when they
are glued to a shape.
The connector's begin and end points show the direction of the connection:
-
Glue the begin point
to the shape you're connecting from. -
Glue the end point
to the shape you're connecting to.
Note Some connectors have arrows only on one end. The connector direction indicated by the begin and end points might be different from the direction of the arrow.
Dynamic
connectors versus straight connectors
Right-angle
connectors created by Connector tool
are dynamic connectors (dynamic connector: A
one-dimensional connector shape that changes its
path to avoid crossing through the shapes which
connected with the connector.), which means they
can automatically bend around the connected
shapes on the page.
Examples of right-angle connectors routing around shapes and crossing over lines
A straight connector is not a dynamic connector; it's a regular one-dimensional shape with end points that can be glued to shapes. A straight connector does not automatically bend around shapes. It always connects in a straight line, which means that it overlaps other shapes in the path of that line.
Examples of straight connectors connecting using straight paths
Note
You can use
Connector layout toolbar
to
change dynamic connectors' appearance and
behavior, please relative article
Change
the Appearances and Behavior of Connectors.
Some shapes, such as organization chart position shapes and the network Ethernet and ring shapes, have built-in connectors¨Dcontrol handles (control handle: A handle that specifies unique behavior for certain shapes. For example, in some shapes you can use a control handle to reposition text on the drawing page. You can pause the pointer over a control handle to see what it does.) that you can drag and glue to other shapes.
Some shapes have
control handles
that you can drag to glue to other shapes.
Copyright EdrawSoft 2004-2010; All Rights Reserved.