By default FoamTree lays out the input groups as polygons in the order of increasing weights. Sometimes, however, it may be desirable to preserve the order of groups presented in the input data object.
One way to preserve the input order is to set the layout option to
ordered, which will cause FoamTree to lay out the groups as polygons in the left-to-right,
top-to-bottom fashion.
Alternatively, to lay out the groups as polygons approximately in the left-to-right
arrangement, set layout to relaxed and
relaxationInitializer to ordered. How closely
the original order will be preserved depends on how imbalanced group weights are. The lower the variance
of the weights, the better the order will be preserved.
Using the experiments section below, you can see how well the original order of groups will be preserved
with different layout and initializer settings. To make order preservation judgments easier, this example sets
a custom groupColorDecorator to vary the
lightness of the polygon depending on the position in the data object.
Generate new data with
uniform |
balanced |
unbalanced weights.
Set layout to
ordered |
squarified.
Set group shapes to
rectangles |
polygons.
Generating ordered rectangular layout by setting the layout
option to ordered or squarified.
Varying the lightness of the group's color depending on its position in the data object using a custom
groupColorDecorator.
Disabling the color lightness and saturation corrections required for the default FoamTree layout by setting
rainbowSaturationCorrection to
1.0 and
rainbowLightnessCorrection to
0.0.