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DevExtreme jQuery - Getting Started with Diagram

The Diagram widget provides a visual interface to help you design new and modify existing diagrams.

NOTE
DevExtreme Diagram is available as a community technology preview (CTP). Should you have any questions or suggestions prior to its official release, please email your comments to support@devexpress.com.

View Demo

Add the Diagram Widget to a Page

Add diagram resources (scripts and styles) onto the page.

  • npm

    The devexpress-diagram is a dependency of the DevExtreme package. Therefore, install the DevExtreme npm package to include the Diagram in your project. Then, add the dx-diagram.min.css and dx-diagram.min.js files to your page.

    HTML
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="node_modules/devexpress-diagram/dx-diagram.min.css">
    <script type="text/javascript" src="node_modules/devexpress-diagram/dx-diagram.min.js"></script>
  • CDN

    Add the dx-diagram.min.css and dx-diagram.min.js files to your page.

    HTML
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn3.devexpress.com/jslib/19.1.16/css/dx-diagram.min.css">
    <script src="https://cdn3.devexpress.com/jslib/19.1.16/js/dx-diagram.min.js"></script>
  • Local Scripts

    You can find all the required files in the DevExtreme zip archive or DevExtreme folder (%ProgramFiles(x86)%\DevExpress 19.1\DevExtreme\Sources). Copy the dx-diagram.min.js and dx-diagram.min.css files into your application folder. Then, link the required files.

    HTML
    <script type="text/javascript" src="js/dx-diagram.min.js"></script>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/dx-diagram.min.css">

Use the the dx-diagram.css and dx-diagram.js files to add an unminified version of the resource files to your page.

NOTE

The Diagram widget is a jQuery DevExtreme widget, and thus requires common DevExtreme resources (listed below) to be included into your page.

HTML
    @* DevExtreme themes *@
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn3.devexpress.com/jslib/19.1.16/css/dx.common.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn3.devexpress.com/jslib/19.1.16/css/dx.light.css">
    @* jQuery *@
    <script src="~/Scripts/jquery-3.5.1.min.js"></script>
    @* DevExtreme common scripts *@
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn3.devexpress.com/jslib/19.1.16/js/dx.all.js"></script>

Initialize the Diagram widget in a DOM element.

JavaScript
HTML
    $(function() {
        $("#diagram").dxDiagram();
    });

<!---->
    <div id="diagram"></div>

Diagram control

Load and Save Diagram Content

To load and save a diagram to a string variable, use the setData and getData methods.

JavaScript
var diagram = $("#diagram").dxDiagram("instance");
var diagramContent = diagram.getData(); // load diagram content to a variable
diagram.setData(newDiagramContent); // replace the existing diagram with a new diagram
NOTE
The Diagram widget stores an opened diagram's data in its own text format. Thereby we recommend you to not modify data returned by the getData method. A manually modified document can be loaded incorrectly.

Data Binding and Auto Layout

The Diagram can load external treelike and graph structures. The supported data structures are listed below.

  • A graph constructed from two plain lists of nodes and edges. The Diagram binds its nodes and edges collections to the appropriate lists.

    index.js
    data.js
    $(function() {
        $("#diagram").dxDiagram({
            nodes: {
                dataSource: orgItems
            },
            edges: {
                dataSource: orgLinks
            },
            layout: "tree"
        });
    });
    var orgItems = [
        {  
            "id":"106",
            "text":"Development",
            "type":2
        },
        {  
            "id":"108",
            "text":"WPF\nTeam",
            "type":2
        },
        {  
            "id":"109",
            "text":"Javascript\nTeam",
            "type":2
        },
        // ...
    ];
    
    var orgLinks = [  
        {  
            "id":"124",
            "from":"106",
            "to":"108",
        },
        {  
            "id":"125",
            "from":"106",
            "to":"109",
        },
        // ...
    ];
  • A tree constructed from a list where each record specifies its IDs and includes a parent node ID reference. Use the dataSource option to bind the widget to the list. You should specify the keyExpr and parentKeyExpr options because of the data's plain structure. The Diagram uses information from the key fields to transform plain data into a tree.

    index.js
    data.js
    $(function() {
        $("#diagram").dxDiagram({
            nodes: {
                dataSource: new DevExpress.data.ArrayStore({
                    key: "ID",
                    data: employees,
                }),
                keyExpr: "ID",
                textExpr: function(item, value) {
                    if(value !== undefined)
                        item.Title = value;
                    else
                        return item && item.Title.replace(" ", "\n");
                },
                parentKeyExpr: "Head_ID"
            },
            layout: "tree"
        });
    });
    var employees = [{
        "ID": 1,
        "Full_Name": "John Heart",
        "Prefix": "Mr.",
        "Title": "CEO",
        "City": "Los Angeles",
        "State": "California",
        "Email": "jheart@dx-email.com",
        "Skype": "jheart_DX_skype",
        "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-9392",
        "Birth_Date": "1964-03-16",
        "Hire_Date": "1995-01-15"
    }, {
        "ID": 2,
        "Head_ID": 1,
        "Full_Name": "Samantha Bright",
        "Prefix": "Dr.",
        "Title": "COO",
        "City": "Los Angeles",
        "State": "California",
        "Email": "samanthab@dx-email.com",
        "Skype": "samanthab_DX_skype",
        "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-2858",
        "Birth_Date": "1966-05-02",
        "Hire_Date": "2004-05-24"
    },
    // ...
    ];
  • A tree constructed from a hierarchical object. Use the dataSource option to bind the widget to the object. You should set the itemsExpr option to the name of the field that provides data for nested items because the data has a hierarchical structure.

    index.js
    data.js
    $(function() {
        $("#diagram").dxDiagram({
            nodes: {
                dataSource: new DevExpress.data.ArrayStore({
                    key: "this",
                    data: employees,
                }),
                textExpr: function(item, value) {
                    if(value !== undefined)
                        item.Title = value;
                    else
                        return item && item.Title.replace(" ", "\n");
                },
                itemsExpr: "items"
            },
            layout: "tree"
        });
    });
    var employees = [{
        "Full_Name": "John Heart",
        "Prefix": "Mr.",
        "Title": "CEO",
        "City": "Los Angeles",
        "State": "California",
        "Email": "jheart@dx-email.com",
        "Skype": "jheart_DX_skype",
        "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-9392",
        "Birth_Date": "1964-03-16",
        "Hire_Date": "1995-01-15",
        "items": [{
            "Full_Name": "Samantha Bright",
            "Prefix": "Dr.",
            "Title": "COO",
            "City": "Los Angeles",
            "State": "California",
            "Email": "samanthab@dx-email.com",
            "Skype": "samanthab_DX_skype",
            "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-2858",
            "Birth_Date": "1966-05-02",
            "Hire_Date": "2004-05-24",
        }, {
            "Full_Name": "Arthur Miller",
            "Prefix": "Mr.",
            "Title": "CTO",
            "City": "Denver",
            "State": "Colorado",
            "Email": "arthurm@dx-email.com",
        "Skype": "arthurm_DX_skype",
            "Mobile_Phone": "(310) 555-8583",
        "Birth_Date": "1972-07-11",
            "Hire_Date": "2007-12-18",
            "items": [{
                "Full_Name": "Brett Wade",
                "Prefix": "Mr.",
                "Title": "IT Manager",
                "City": "Reno",
                "State": "Nevada",
                "Email": "brettw@dx-email.com",
                "Skype": "brettw_DX_skype",
                "Mobile_Phone": "(626) 555-0358",
                "Birth_Date": "1968-12-01",
                "Hire_Date": "2009-03-06",
    // ...

Use the layout option to specify an auto-layout algorithm ("sugiyama" or "tree") that widget uses to build a diagram.

Data Toolbox

The Diagram widget allows you to import data from a data source into a data toolbox.

Use the createDataSource method to create data toolbox items based on an external data source. End users can drag data items from the toolbox and drop them onto a canvas to build a diagram.

Diagram control data toolbox

If a data source provides information about nodes' relations, specify the layout option, to auto-generate a diagram.

index.js
data.js
$(function() {
    var diagram = $("#diagram").dxDiagram()
        .dxDiagram("instance");
    diagram.createDataSource({
        key: "0",
        title: "Employees",
        nodes: {
            dataSource: employees,
            keyExpr: "ID",
            textExpr: function(item) {
                return item && item.Full_Name.replace(" ", "\n");
            },
            parentKeyExpr: "Head_ID"
        },
        layout: "tree"
    });
});
var employees = [{
    "ID": 1,
    "Head_ID": 0,
    "Full_Name": "John Heart",
    "Prefix": "Mr.",
    "Title": "CEO",
    "City": "Los Angeles",
    "State": "California",
    "Email": "jheart@dx-email.com",
    "Skype": "jheart_DX_skype",
    "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-9392",
    "Birth_Date": "1964-03-16",
    "Hire_Date": "1995-01-15"
}, {
    "ID": 2,
    "Head_ID": 1,
    "Full_Name": "Samantha Bright",
    "Prefix": "Dr.",
    "Title": "COO",
    "City": "Los Angeles",
    "State": "California",
    "Email": "samanthab@dx-email.com",
    "Skype": "samanthab_DX_skype",
    "Mobile_Phone": "(213) 555-2858",
    "Birth_Date": "1966-05-02",
    "Hire_Date": "2004-05-24"
// ...

Custom Shapes

The Diagram widget provides a collection of built-in shapes. Use the customShapes option to extend this collection with custom shapes.

Diagram control custom shapes

NOTE
Shape images should be supplied as SVG files.
JavaScript
$(function() {
    var diagram = $("#diagram").dxDiagram({
        customShapes: [{
            id: 0,
            title: "Internet",
            svgUrl: "images/shapes/internet.svg",
            defaultWidth: 1.27,
            defaultHeight: 1.27,
            allowHasText: false
        },
        {
            id: 1,
            title: "Laptop",
            svgUrl: "images/shapes/laptop.svg",
            defaultWidth: 1.27,
            defaultHeight: 1.27,
            allowHasText: false
        },
        // ...
        ]
    }).dxDiagram("instance");
    // ...
});