What is the best way to style nodes in a Force Directed Graph using CSS in D3?

Currently, I am developing a Force Directed Graph using D3 and managed to make it work with svg circles for the nodes. However, when attempting to use div elements along with CSS left and top properties, the positioning of the nodes seems to be incorrect. I am struggling to identify what mistake I might be making in this scenario. I have utilized the x and y coordinates generated by D3 force as the values for the left and top properties, but could this approach be flawed?

Below is the part of my code written in JavaScript:

var url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DealPete/forceDirected/master/countries.json";

d3.json(url, function(json){

  var data = json;

  var margin = {top: 40, right: 40, bottom: 40, left: 40};

  var w = 1000 - margin.left - margin.right;
  var h = 1000 - margin.top - margin.bottom;

  var svg = d3.select("#chart")
              .append("svg")
                .attr("width", w + margin.left + margin.right)
                .attr("height", h + margin.top + margin.bottom)
              .append("g")
                .attr("transform", "translate(" + margin.left + "," + margin.top + ")");

  var nodes = data.nodes;
  var links = data.links;

  //Code snippet responsible for defining a force layout object and its properties
  var force = d3.layout.force()
                .size([w,h])
                .nodes(nodes)
                .links(links);

  force.linkDistance(h/20);

  force.charge(-120)

  var link = svg.selectAll(".link")
                .data(links)
                .enter()
                .append("line")
                .attr("class", "link");

  var node = d3.select("#chart").selectAll(".node")
                .data(nodes)
                .enter()
                .append("div")

  force.on("end", function(){
  //Adjust node and link position attributes once force calculations are complete  

    //Node positioning
    node.style("left", function(d){

            return d.x  + "px";

        })
        .style("top", function(d){

            return d.y + "px";

        })
        .attr("class", function(d){

            return "flag flag-" + d.code + " node";

        })
        .attr("src", "https://res.cloudinary.com/dettjqo9j/image/upload/v1485942660/flags_xf9dde.png");

    link.attr("x1", function(d){

            return d.source.x;

        })
        .attr("y1", function(d){

            return d.source.y;

        })
        .attr("x2", function(d){

            return d.target.x;

        })
        .attr("y2", function(d){

             return d.target.y;

        })



  })//force.on


  force.start();
  //Initiate the force calculations

})

My CSS styling:

svg {

  background-color: white;
  box-shadow: 0 0 10px #888888;

}

.link {

  stroke: #2c3e50;
  stroke-width: 2px;

}

.flag {
    display: inline-block;
    position:absolute;
    width: 16px;
    height: 11px;
    background: url('https://res.cloudinary.com/dettjqo9j/image/upload/v1485942660/flags_xf9dde.png') no-repeat;
}

.flag.flag-ml {
    background-position: -224px -88px;
}

The current status of the graph on CodePen:

https://codepen.io/chemok78/full/VPMgGx/

Answer №1

Explain the displacement of the links in the SVG from the window: they are moved to the right by margin.left, downwards by margin.top, and further down by the heights of both <h1> and <h2> (including padding).

As an illustration, in my browser, the flags appear correctly positioned with this code:

node.style("left", function(d){

        return d.x + margin.left + 150 + "px";

    })
    .style("top", function(d){

        return d.y + margin.top + "px";

    })

It's worth noting that this is due to the fact that the default left and top attributes of the <div> flag elements are set to 0, even though they are children of <div#chart>. The value of 150 was hardcoded but could potentially be calculated dynamically.

The reason why it worked with <circle> but not <div> is because circles are SVG elements and direct children of <svg>, so they start in the correct positions. There might be an alternative approach where you maintain the flags within SVGs by adding nodes as <g> or <rect> instead of <div>, utilizing attributes like x and y instead of left and top, and making them children of <svg> rather than <div#chart>. However, I have not yet explored how to implement assigning flags to each node without a unique URL for each flag file.

Answer №2

Thank you everyone for your support,

I managed to determine the position of the SVG g element within the chart by utilizing the method Element.getBoundingClientRect(). This information was crucial in accurately positioning all the nodes.

//Retrieve the coordinates of the g element in the chart
  var position = document.getElementById("area").getBoundingClientRect();

force.on("tick", function(){

    node.style("left", function(d){

            return d.x  + position.left + "px";

        })
        .style("top", function(d){

            return d.y  + position.top  +  "px";

        })
        .attr("class", function(d){

            return "flag flag-" + d.code + " node";

        })
        .attr("src", "https://res.cloudinary.com/dettjqo9j/image/upload/v1485942660/flags_xf9dde.png")

    link.attr("x1", function(d){

            return d.source.x;

        })
        .attr("y1", function(d){

            return d.source.y;

        })
        .attr("x2", function(d){

            return d.target.x;

        })
        .attr("y2", function(d){

             return d.target.y;

        })

  })

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