[Tex/LaTex] TikZ-tree: edge-alignment in horizontal org-chart

node-connectionstikz-pgftikz-treestrees

I'm working on some sort of org-chart/hierarchy-tree and ran into issues with the edge-alignment. As a guideline I used the family-tree-TeXample. See the TeX.sx-dicussion here.

However, the text in my nodes is a lot longer than the short names in the example. Therefore, starting the edges from the south-anchor of the criteria-nodes produces quite a bit of whitespace.

As a solution to this, I'd like to start the edges at the west-anchor of the criteria-nodes. However, edge from parent path is set to |- and thus does not produce a horizontal section before going vertical.

Current edge-alignment in the MWE

I tried the below of=<node>, but that didn't help either. The option I'm trying to avoid is setting a coordinate for each edge, in case I'd have to adjust something later. Spreading the tree out horizontally is unfortunately not an option either, because the attribute-count is too high.

I googled a bit to find some pictures of trees that have this edge-style:

Preferred
Also nice
Last resort

The first tree uses an edge style like -|-.

The second one is also nice, but this anchor does not exist in TikZ-nodes.

The third is better than my current solution, but doesn't look very clean.

Here's the MWE that produces a tree as shown in the picture at the top:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{trees}
\tikzstyle{every node}=[draw=black,thick,anchor=west, minimum height=2.5em]

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[!htb]
\resizebox{\linewidth}{!}{

\begin{tikzpicture}[
criteria/.style={text centered, text width=2cm, fill=gray!50},
attribute/.style={%
    grow=down, xshift=-1cm,
    text centered, text width=2cm,
    edge from parent path={(\tikzparentnode.south west) |- (\tikzchildnode.west)}},
first/.style    ={level distance=8ex},
second/.style   ={level distance=16ex},
third/.style    ={level distance=24ex},
fourth/.style   ={level distance=32ex},
fifth/.style    ={level distance=40ex},
level 1/.style={sibling distance=10em}]
    % Main Goal
    \node[anchor=south]{SuperLongTitleWithNoMeaning}
    [edge from parent fork down]

    % Criteria and Attributes
    child{node (crit1) [criteria] {Criteria1}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute\\Number1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Attribute3}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Attribute4}}
        child[attribute,fifth]  {node {Another\\Attribute}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria2}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Third\\Criteria}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Longtext-\\criteria}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria3}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute\\two lines}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}     
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Attribute3}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria4}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria5}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {First\\Attribute}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Third\\Criteria}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Longtext-\\criteria}}};
\end{tikzpicture}}
\caption{This is a nice tree.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Bonus question:

The top-node centers itself according to the total number of nodes in all levels. Therefore, it's a bit shifted toward the left. Can I tell TikZ to ignore the attribute-level for the centering? It would look nicer, if the heading would be right above the middle criteria.

Best Answer

Here's something like the second option (the node does exist).

There are only two changes to your MWE, in attribute/,style:

The xshift needs adjusting
The anchor point you need can be expressed as an angle

Sorry: I pass on the bonus.

Here it is -- I leave final adjustments to your taste:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{trees}
\tikzstyle{every node}=[draw=black,thick,anchor=west, minimum height=2.5em]

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[!htb]
\resizebox{\linewidth}{!}{

\begin{tikzpicture}[
criteria/.style={text centered, text width=2cm, fill=gray!50},
attribute/.style={%
    grow=down, xshift=0cm,
    text centered, text width=2cm,
    edge from parent path={(\tikzparentnode.225) |- (\tikzchildnode.west)}},
first/.style    ={level distance=8ex},
second/.style   ={level distance=16ex},
third/.style    ={level distance=24ex},
fourth/.style   ={level distance=32ex},
fifth/.style    ={level distance=40ex},
level 1/.style={sibling distance=10em}]
    % Main Goal
    \node[anchor=south]{SuperLongTitleWithNoMeaning}
    [edge from parent fork down]

    % Criteria and Attributes
    child{node (crit1) [criteria] {Criteria1}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute\\Number1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Attribute3}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Attribute4}}
        child[attribute,fifth]  {node {Another\\Attribute}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria2}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Third\\Criteria}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Longtext-\\criteria}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria3}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute\\two lines}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}     
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Attribute3}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria4}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {Attribute1}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}}
    %
    child{node [criteria] {Criteria5}
        child[attribute,first]  {node {First\\Attribute}}
        child[attribute,second] {node {Attribute2}}
        child[attribute,third]  {node {Third\\Criteria}}
        child[attribute,fourth] {node {Longtext-\\criteria}}};
\end{tikzpicture}}
\caption{This is a nice tree.}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Gradient color on TikZ tree

I don't know how to do this with a tree and child but it's possible like this :

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,trees}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations}
\begin{document}

\makeatletter

\pgfkeys{/pgf/decoration/.cd,
         start color/.store in =\startcolor,
         end color/.store in   =\endcolor
}

\pgfdeclaredecoration{color change}{initial}{
 \state{initial}[width=0pt, next state=line, persistent precomputation={%
   \pgfmathdivide{50}{\pgfdecoratedpathlength}%
   \let\increment=\pgfmathresult%
   \def\x{0}%
 }]{}
 \state{line}[width=.5pt,   persistent postcomputation={%
     \pgfmathadd@{\x}{\increment}%
     \let\x=\pgfmathresult%
   }]{%
   \pgfsetarrows{-}%
   \pgfpathmoveto{\pgfpointorigin}%
   \pgfpathlineto{\pgfqpoint{.75pt}{0pt}}%
   \pgfsetstrokecolor{\endcolor!\x!\startcolor}%
   \pgfusepath{stroke}%
 }
 \state{final}{%
   \pgfpathmoveto{\pgfpointorigin}%
   \color{\endcolor!\x!\startcolor}%
   \pgfusepath{stroke}% 
 }}
\makeatother

\begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={circle,minimum width=1cm,font=\small},line width=1.6pt] 
  \node [fill=blue] (P) {Parent};
  \node [fill=red]    (C1) at (0:3)  {Child 1};
  \node [fill=yellow] (C2) at (30:3) {Child 2}; 
  \node [fill=green]  (C3) at (60:3) {Child 3};  
    \draw[line width=2pt, 
          decoration={color change, start color=blue, end color=red},
          decorate] (P) -- (C1) ;
\draw[line width = 2pt, 
      decoration = {color change, start color=blue, end color=yellow}, 
          decorate] (P) -- (C2) ;   
\draw[line width = 2pt, 
      decoration = {color change, start color=blue, end color=green}, 
          decorate] (P) -- (C3) ;   
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] Changing the indentation of a Tikz tree

Let's provide a different example which shows better your problem:

% Assumming preamble as provided in the question
    \tikzset{
    dirtree/.style={
      growth function=\dirtree@growth,
      every node/.style={anchor=north},
      every child node/.style={anchor=west},
      edge from parent path={(\tikzparentnode\tikzparentanchor) |- (\tikzchildnode\tikzchildanchor)}
  }
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[dirtree]
\node {toplevel} 
    child { node {Foobarish}
            child { node  {foobar} 
                    child { node {foo}} 
                  }
            child { node  {foo} 
                    child {node {foo} } 
                  }
            child { node  {bar} }
    }
    child { node {Bar}
        child { node {foo} }
        child { node {foo} }
    };
\end{tikzpicture}

The output is:

Output

This shows not only the issue you mention, but also that the vertical stems in each branch are not aligned (the branch from Foobarish is not aligned with the branch from Bar). This problem will be also solved with a proper parent anchor (and growth parent anchor) which does not depend on the size of the parent. In this case south west is the best choice.

The following style solves all these issues, and provides a very compact version of the tree.

\tikzset{
  dirtree/.style={
    growth function=\dirtree@growth,
    growth parent anchor=south west,
    parent anchor=south west,
    every child node/.style={anchor=west},
    edge from parent path={([xshift=2ex] \tikzparentnode\tikzparentanchor) 
                           |- (\tikzchildnode\tikzchildanchor)}
  }
}

Final result

Thanks to Andrew Stacey and Jake for their useful comments about the need to set also growth parent anchor (their comments below refer to an early version of this answer).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Gradient color on TikZ tree

[Tex/LaTex] Changing the indentation of a Tikz tree

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