One frustrating thing I find about the interface when working with lines and arrowed lines especially when looping back from an object back to itself such as with sequence diagram lifelines is that the interface will create some strange unlikely paths rather than an obvious direct line. For example sometimes I would like to create an arrow on the right side of a vertical lifeline that connects from the lifeline back to itself and instead of letting me easily connect back to the right side the interface will insist on creating a connection on the left side of the line. Once I manage to create a valid arrow on the right side of the live if I have to move the endpoints up or down the interface will once again decide I want to connect back to the left side or follow some strange loop rather than a simple u shape out from the line and back to the line.
Is this just me? Is this caused by surrounding elements? Is there a setting? Am I doing something wrong? I have learned to turn off the "connect lines" option but that doesn't solve the problem entirely and it creates a diagram with unconnected elements.
Hi Harry
Thank you for posting in the Community! You can use Smart Lines to create the most efficient path between two objects.
To create a smart line follow these steps:
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
I'm having the same issue. When attaching an arrow to another line it will sometimes force me to attach the arrow to one side of the line rather than the other. How can you switch the side of a line you are connecting another line to?
Hi Charles
Thanks for posting in the community! Smart lines are designed to map the best route to connect two shapes but if you prefer another route you can still modify lines to your preference. For more information on how to modify lines please review this Help Center article.
If this doesn't help could you please share a screenshot of the issue you are experiencing so we can take a closer look?
I'm having the same exact issue as described at top of thread.
And responses don't have a solution that works.
Hi John thank you for continuing this thread! It sounds like you may be using smart lines in your diagram which allows the lines to automatically find the best route to connect between shapes. I have attached a GIF demonstrating the difference between the two.
The top example is simply connecting a line to a connector point and the bottom example is using smart lines.
The easiest way to differentiate the two is by the boarder of the shape you are connecting to. If the shape boarder is highlighted in blue the connection will be a smart line. The red dot is a normal connector and your line should stay connected to the same place - in this example. the right side of the shape.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to let us know if this is not what you are looking for or if you have any questions about this!
The issue is specifically with Sequence Diagrams and trying to draw a simple sideways "U" shaped arrow on the same lifeline. I cannot manage to get the U shape of the arrow on the right side where I want it. And sometimes its even difficult to get U shape on left side.
Then If I try to move it and put it back to a U shape I end up with this:
Here is a snapshot exhibiting the problem I'm having:
It will draw one on the left like this but I cannot draw one on the right:
Hi @john h106 thanks for sharing that and apologies for the delayed response! I checked with our engineers and can confirm that this behaviour is unfortunately currently expected. While I cannot share any timelines on this the feedback from you and other users on this thread is heard and our engineers will be looking into improving our line routing behaviour.
Thanks again for taking the time to share this feedback and sorry for any inconvenience! Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or feedback and we will be happy to pass it onto our engineer team. Cheers!
I am having this same problem, this is inane and makes lucid charts almost useless to me for sequence diagrams, a core business need. Even turning off “Smart(stupid)Lines” Lucid still forces weird connections. Callbacks to the same lifeline should be trivial, but this morning it took me 10 min to try to connive it , making me want to cancel my lucid subscription entirely.
Hi@dmeilinger , thank you for continuing this post and taking the time to share your feedback. I’ve passed this on to our engineer team.
I’ve also converted this post to an idea so that it’s visible to others within the Product Feedback section of the community - from here, they can upvote it and add details of their own.
We encourage anyone else who’s interested in this to upvote this post and share any additional details about your use case or what you’d like to see in this experience.
Finally, for more information on how Lucid manages feedback via this community, take a look at this post:
We appreciate your willingness to provide your requests and feedback in the Lucid Community!