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Better Lines / Connectors in Miro

Robert Johnson
Tomas Junger
Kim Roth Howe
M
T
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  • Robert Johnson
    Robert Johnson
  • Tomas Junger
    Tomas Junger
  • Kim Roth Howe
    Kim Roth Howe
  • M
    Markham, Matt (GE Digital)
  • T
    Tarquino
  • R
    Rossana Palummieri
  • S
    Suzana Talusan
  • J
    Joanna Grunau
  • B
    Bernard van Niekerk
  • R
    rwill
  • Y
    Yann Kottelat
  • S
    stillGarry
M

Hi
create a lot of diagrams in Miro and find that while a lot of stuff works really well, ‘line’ are not that great.

  1. It is hard to create just lines that are not connected to any object. I.e. a divider line. While this can be done, they really want to lock to an object.
  2. If you want lines to lock to an object, other tools such as GDraw or Lucidchart (while much clunkier in many was) allow lines to be better connected to objects, mostly because of more vertices each object has and to which a line can connect
  3. Other tools allow better control of how connectors flow around other objects if they are not straight lines. Either automatically (not that important imo) or allowing manual adjustment.

Sorry this is a big vague, but possibly also quite hard to get right.

 

Was it helpful?

2 replies

Henrik Ståhl
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@Marcel Britsch 

  1. I totally agree, it really is quite hard to draw a line that isn't supposed to be connected to anything. I'm thinking that a possible solution could be to add a line shape to the list of shapes. It might be a bit confusing for some with the existence of two kind of lines, but since the existing one today is named connection line it could work.
  2. Hmm, but a line can lock anywhere on an object? Do you have an example, maybe even a screenshot?
  3. There is automation to some extent, depending on which type of line you're drawing. Have you tried changing type? 🙂

Here's some more info on connection lines:

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017730733-Connection-lines

M
Forum|alt.badge.img

@Henrik Ståhl hello
thanks for the response :)
Right, so I did some playing around with Google Draw and Lucid chart. Both are not ideal in general, but have solved some of the line issues:

 

So the gist is this: Their lines ONLY connect when you really hover over a connection point on an object. I think Miro is just to ‘eager’ to snap lines to objects. Just increasing the distance to snap might actually solve the problem.
Also, I have seen cases where I drew a non connected line, then moved the line, and it suddenly connected to the nearest object. With the above behaviour that would never happen, as one would actively have to move the endpoint of the line near the connection point of an object. Just moving the line near should not achieve that (and doesn’t in Google Draw / Lucidchart).

 

Some further thoughts to your points above: 

  1. Line types
    Google only has lines like Miro does, and all lines can connect. But they connect less eagerly, so it works.
    Lucidcharts has connecting lines and ‘normal’ lines. I’m not a fan of the latter, they feel clunky and are not needed.
  1. Connecting points
    I’m clearly mistaken here: I thought that Google Draw and Lucid chart had more connecting points, e.g. on a rectangle the corners and the half way points. Having said that, GoogleDraw has more points on circles.
    Having said that, it appears as if there is some snapping of the endpoint of a line to the outline of an object no matter where, i.e. even if not near an actual connection point, BUT, when you then move the object, the line does not move with it. So this is a useful drawing help, but does not actually link objects. I think that works quite well, too. I think Miro wants to behave the same, but due to the ‘eager’ snapping, undermines this at times.

Hope this helps

marcel

 

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