Connections

Overview

Connections are the arrows that connect two elements. They link a source element (connection start) to a target element (connection arrowhead).

Connections indicate possible directions of the story flow in a board.

{info} Connections also connect elements to branches and jumpers.

Creating connections

To create a connection from an element to another:

  • Click and drag near the source element's perimetre.
  • Release either at one of the sides or inside the target element.

A connection's placement will be either fixed to the dropped side or automatic: its ends will always place themselves in such a way as to cover the shortest possible distance between the source and the target element.

Moving connections

You can change a connection's source or target by dragging and dropping its endpoints to a different element.

Deleting connections

To delete a connection:

  • Select it and press Delete or Backspace.

or:

  • Right-click on it and choose Delete selection.

or:

  • Drag and drop any of its endpoints to an empty area of the board.

Connection labels

Connections can optionally take labels. The connection labels may contain formatted text and arcscript. Any arcsript inside connections will be evaluated before determining whether to display an option in play mode that depends on branch conditional statements. The arcscript inside labels will be applied to play mode state after the option is selected and before the element content is displayed.

To add arcscript code inside a connection label click on the arcscript segment icon in the toolbar while editing the label. To exit the block press Enter.

On play mode, the text of a connection's label appears as the text of the respective clickable option on that element.

Creating labels

To create a label:

  • Right click the connection and select Create label.

or:

  • Double click anywhere on the connection.

You can then start typing the label's text.

Labels allow rich text format (bold, italics, underline).

Once finished writing a label, press escape or tab.

Editing labels

To edit a label:

  • Right click its connection and select Edit label.

or:

  • Double click anywhere on its connection.

Adding arcscript code inside a label

Just as with elements, we can add arcscript segments inside a connection label. We can use this to:

  • create dynamic option text.
  • assign a value to a variable upon exiting the element via that connection.

Here is an example that does both:

Deleting labels

To delete a label:

  • Hover the mouse cursor over the label.
  • Click on the (x) icon that appears at its top right corner.

or:

  • Delete all its text and press esc or tab.

Changing theme

To change the colour theme of a connection, right-click on it and select one of the available colours from the menu.

Changing type

Connections have three types, Bezier (default), Straight and Flowchart.

To change a connection type, right-click on the connection and choose one of the available type icons.

{success} The most recently selected connection type becomes the default connection type for new connections.