LINGUIST List 9.386

Tue Mar 17 1998

Sum: Directed Acyclic Graphs

Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Joseph Hilferty, DAGs & AVMs

A while back I posted a query about how best to draw DAGs
(directed acyclic graphs) on a PC. I would like to thank
Ralf Grosserhode and Kevin Russell for taking the time to
respond.

Ralf Grosserhode mentioned StarOffice by Stardivision as
a good option. It is reasonably priced and has some nice
"presentation" features that makes it good for drawing
maps, etc. More information about this software can be
found at:

http://www.stardivision.com/index.html
http://www.stardivision.de


Kevin Russell recommended the Graphviz package of graph-
drawing tools, which he said would be "overkill" for simple
DAGs but useful. The URL is:

http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/description.html

Since I'm a WordPerfect user, I've found CorelDraw to be
okay for DAGs with arrows and nodes, so long as you don't
have to insert too many figures into your text.

On the other hand, I have stumbled onto a way of making
attribute-value-style DAGs (a.k.a. AVMs) with WP. If the
line spacing is set at 0.5 within a text box, you can get
symmetric-looking AVMs. The square brackets can be done
by using the linedraw (box drawing) option in another
text box (or however many you need), which then can be
nested in the original text box and dragged into place.
Unfortunately, your computer will probably start to slow
down after about five AVMs, though.

If anyone else happens to know of any other tricks, let
me know at:

hilfertylingua.fil.ub.es

Thanks again to Ralf and Kevin,

Joe Hilferty
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Home page: http://lingua.fil.ub.es/~hilferty/homepage.html