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Default arrowheads and efficient line paths in Lucidchart

  • 9 April 2024
  • 8 replies
  • 115 views
D
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I’ve loved Lucidchart for everything for years now. Suddenly I went in (hadn’t used it for a few weeks) and the arrows linking shapes have gone absolutely nuts.

Example behavior (it is happening constantly and in other versions):

I have a few boxes linked

I try to draw an arrow to point to a new box. 

Arrow endpoint is no longer arrow shaped (I have to manually change it from straight line)

All my lines in the connected shapes get redrawn / realigned into really weird shapes

The only way I can get even semi-sane behavior is to..

Draw a line from a connection point to empty space

Then pull the line to the shape I wanted

Then go in and change the line shape to have an arrow

 

Please, how do I return to the functional easy-to-use behavior Lucidchart used to have? Can I roll back versions on Lucidchart? Is there a place where I can change the new settings back to the old one? This is practically broken

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Best answer by Leianne C 10 April 2024, 10:06

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D
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Arrow behavior as soon as I try to draw a connection point from ‘Get Entry’ to ‘Get Reqs’

 

Leianne C
Userlevel 4
Badge +14

Hi @Daniel C, thank you for posting in the community. I’m happy to take a closer look at the issue you’re experiencing. 

For the endpoint of your lines, it sounds like you may have changed the default style to something non-arrow shaped by accident. To change the default style, please deselect everything (a quick way to do this is to click on a blank space on the canvas) then change the line endpoint to an arrow. 

Once that is changed, all the new lines you create should have the arrow endpoint!


Regarding the line behaviour, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to reproduce the issue you’ve described. Could you please confirm if this is happening to this specific document or all your documents? 

If possible, can you please share a description of steps you took leading up to the issue shown in your screenshot? This will help me take a closer look. Thank you! 

D
Badge +1

I’ve loved Lucidchart for everything for years now. Suddenly I went in (hadn’t used it for a few weeks) and the arrows linking shapes have gone absolutely nuts.

Example behavior (it is happening constantly and in other versions):

I have a few boxes linked

I try to draw an arrow to point to a new box. 

Arrow endpoint is no longer arrow shaped (I have to manually change it from straight line)

All my lines in the connected shapes get redrawn / realigned into really weird shapes

The only way I can get even semi-sane behavior is to..

Draw a line from a connection point to empty space

Then pull the line to the shape I wanted

Then go in and change the line shape to have an arrow

 

Please, how do I return to the functional easy-to-use behavior Lucidchart used to have? Can I roll back versions on Lucidchart? Is there a place where I can change the new settings back to the old one? This is practically broken

RE: Arrow in the wrong format:

copy pasted box next to the original (ctrl+c ctrl+v drag)

can’t quite screenshot the drag action but I just drag from original-box to new-box (no changes to the arrow, which we can see was fine) and it drags a solid line

so the arrow format is correct and is ignored. then, if I complete drawing that line.. 

I don’t perform any actions in between. It doesn’t happen between all boxes, but it happens a significant amount of times (enough that I am posting here). I cannot understand the exact conditions why it happens sometimes but not others. Perhaps it is somehow related to the copy-paste? But I can sometimes copy-paste boxes and it does not do this. 

 

For sanity sake I created a new page, didn’t use any containers (in case that was the issue)

Dragged and dropped a box from shapes and labeled it ‘Test Box 1’

I copy-pasted it to the side and labeled the new ‘Test Box 2’

I visually confirmed the arrow was in the expected format..

And when I dragged and dropped (still can’t screenshot in between) the line had no visible arrow as I was dragging it, the arrow ‘shape’ in the top bar was greyed out but still showed ‘none’ and an ‘arrow’ (like in the above, just greyed), and then when I completed drawing between..

I am afraid I don’t know what other info I can provide about the process to help replicate it. Oh, and to be extra sure the arrow wasn’t just ‘looking set’ I went back, to where there were two boxes, intentionally set it to a new arrow style

but the behavior continues when I try to connect them. Maybe I pressed a hotkey and flipped some setting somewhere? I don’t know, I can’t understand the behavior enough to begin understanding where to look for such a setting

Phillip W
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hey @Daniel C -- would you mind telling me what the shape type is that your using here? Could you also clarify if this is happening with all shapes or just this one? 

Thank you for your help and patience!

Z
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The same thing is happening to me. I have an arrow selected as my default line, and if I draw a line connected to nothing that’s exactly what I get. As soon as I try to draw a line from an entity relationship shape it changes the arrow to a 3 prong fork for only that line.

Phillip W
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hey @Zach White -- thanks for posting on this thread! To clarify, this is expected from an ERD shape, however, I’d like to know what type of shape you’re using for your initial default line? Would you mind to share a screenshot of what you are seeing on your end? 

Z
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Hi Phillip, can I change that? I’m not building an ERD here, but the ERD shape is exactly what I need to diagram the system I’m building. It’s a huge pain to have to switch the arrow each time I make a line.

Phillip W
Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hey @Zach White -- unfortunately not. The ERD shape is specific to creating ERDs and this shape lends itself to customizing the line based upon the needs of the ERD parameters. 

A bit of a hacky workaround would be to create your own shape. I know this isn’t perfect, but here is an example of utilizing Process shapes to make an ERD shape: 

Once made, you can add your custom shape to a cusom shape library and it will be available for use anytime. 

 

Hope this helps!

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