Layouting

When to auto-layout

Hand-placed nodes break down past a few dozen elements or when graphs are generated from data. Layout engines compute positions from the graph's structure.

Choosing an engine

Each engine trades simplicity for control.

• dagre — small, fast, great for top-down trees and pipelines.
• ELK — highly configurable, supports ports and compound nodes.
• d3-force — organic layouts for knowledge graphs.

Measure first

Run layout after nodes have been measured so the engine knows their real width and height. useNodesInitialized tells you when that has happened.