Style

To highlight key aspects of your investigation or key pieces of information on your chart, you can configure the style or appearance of an item.

The style of an item controls how it is displayed on the chart surface. By modifying style properties, you can:

  • Set the shade color of an entity. For example, you can set the color of a vehicle icon.
  • Set the line color of a link.
  • Display a picture in place of an icon. For example, you can display a photo of a person.
  • Add a frame around an entity to draw attention to it.
  • Choose which pieces of information are displayed on the chart surface. For example, you can display item grades and source type information.
  • Indicate the confidence of an item's data by making the displayed line dashed or solid.
  • Set the properties of an item's font.
  • Select the link multiplicity of a connection between two entities. For example, you can emphasize that there are several associations between two entities by showing the connection as multiple links rather than a single link.

Display

What information you can choose to display for an entity and how you display it on the chart surface depends on which representation you use.

Table 1. Available information for display on a chart surface
Display Used by
Date & Time All items
Description All items
Grades All items
Label All items
Link Area Diverting event frames
Picture Icons, theme lines, and event frames
Frame Icons and theme lines
Pin All entities and any links that link 2 theme lines
Source Reference All items
Source Type All items
Type Icon Event frames only. Always displayed for icons and theme lines.
Type Name Event frames only

Fonts

You can set the font type, size, style, color, and shading for a chart item. For event frames, text blocks and text labels, you can also set the text alignment.
Changing the font of an item updates:
  • Label text
  • Description text
  • Grade and source information text
  • Date and time text
You cannot change the font of an individual word or phrase.
Note: A font change does not apply to attribute text. Attribute text properties are specified per attribute class in the Edit Attribute Class page of the Chart Properties window.

Link multiplicity

When multiple links are present between two entities, link multiplicity determines how these links are displayed. Link multiplicity can be:
  • Single: The connection between two entities is shown as a single link. This single link represents an association between two entities, which might in reality, comprise many different instances of that association.
  • Directed: The connection between two entities is represented by one link for each possible direction. A directed connection has therefore a maximum of four links. Each of those links might represent several instances of the association, all in that same direction such as several transactions from one bank account to another.
  • Multiple: Each link between two entities is displayed individually.