The Canvas is the middle column of the Views page. It renders the entities and edges you selected in the Entities panel, and provides tools for arranging and styling the graph.
Interactions
| Interaction | Behavior |
|---|
| Click | Select a node or edge. |
| Drag | Move a node. |
| Shift-drag | Draw a selection box around multiple items. |
| Delete / Backspace | Remove selected items. |
Actions
| Action | Result |
|---|
| Undo | Reverses the last change to the view. |
| Redo | Re-applies the last undone change. |
| Delete / Backspace | Removes the selected items from the view. |
| Find (F3) | Opens a search box to find and reveal nodes and edges on the canvas and in the Entities panel. |
Edge merge modes
The toolbar has a dropdown that controls how multiple edges between the same pair of nodes are drawn:
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|
| Merge: Full | Combine every edge between the same two nodes into one bundled edge. |
| Merge: Type | Bundle edges that share the same type. |
| Merge: None | Draw every edge separately. |
Timeline
The timeline panel lists change slices for the active view. Timeline snapshots are produced in two ways:
- Manually, while you edit the view.
- Automatically, by the contextual-graph sync job’s Update views from contextual graph stage, which diffs the current graph against each saved view and appends a slice when changes are detected.
Each slice shows the time, action, summary, and counts of added, updated, or removed nodes and edges. Selecting a slice opens a read-only snapshot of the view at that point.
Controls
The Controls switch in the panel header opens a floating panel with layout and display options.
Layout
| Option | Description |
|---|
| Algorithm | ELK layout algorithm. |
| Direction | Primary layout direction. |
| Edge routing | How edges are drawn between nodes. |
| Crossing minimization | Strategy for reducing edge crossings. |
| Greedy switch | Additional crossing-reduction pass. |
Background and display
| Option | Description |
|---|
| Background | Off, dots, lines, or cross. |
| Edge labels | Show or hide edge labels. |
| Node IDs | Show or hide node IDs. |
| Handles | Show or hide connection handles. |
| Color bars | Show or hide node color bars. |
| Top nodes | Show only the N best-connected nodes. |
Spacing and routing
| Option | Description |
|---|
| Spacing | Edge-to-edge, edge-to-node, handle, stub, layer, and node spacing. |
| Hate crossings | Prefer shorter routes even if they cross. |
| Route only when blocked | Keep edges straight unless blocked. |
Nodes
| Option | Description |
|---|
| Minimum width / height | Smallest rendered node size. |
| Horizontal / vertical text alignment | Text positioning inside nodes. |
Control actions
| Action | Result |
|---|
| Auto-layout | Runs ELK on the current graph. |
| Reset | Restores the default layout and display options. |