JointJS+ Halo

Halo creates a control panel above an element with various tools. This gives the user control over your elements with tools located right at hand.

Installation

Include joint.ui.halo.css and joint.ui.halo.js files to your HTML:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="joint.ui.halo.css">
    <script src="joint.ui.halo.js"></script>

Creating a Halo

const graph = new joint.dia.Graph({}, { cellNamespace: joint.shapes });
    const paper = new joint.dia.Paper({
        el: document.getElementById('paper'),
        width: 500,
        height: 500,
        model: graph,
        cellViewNamespace: joint.shapes
    });

    paper.on('element:pointerup', (elementView) => {
        const halo = new joint.ui.Halo({ cellView: elementView });
        halo.render();
    });

The joint.ui.Halo constructor takes a graph and paper objects + it also requires the view of a cell we want to display the halo above.

Default handles (tools)

The ui.Halo control panel has the following built-in tools. To add custom tools, please see the section Customizing halo tools.

Configuration

The joint.ui.Halo constructor function takes an options object as an argument. The options object can have the following parameters:

new ui.Halo({
  /* ... */
  clone: (cell) => {
    return cell.clone({ deep: true });
    // const [cellClone, ...embedsClones] = cell.clone({ deep: true });
    // return [cellClone, ...embedsClones];
  }
});

new joint.dia.Halo({
  cellView: elementView,
  magnet: (elementView, end, evt) => {
    // where `end` is either "source" (linking and forking) or "target" (forking only)
    // and `evt` is a `mousedown` event
    // connect the link directly to a rectangle element as opposed to the element group
    return elementView.el.querySelector('rect') || elementView.el;
  }
})

Disabling halo tools

Built-in tools are remove, resize, rotate, clone, fork, link and unlink. You can call the removeHandle() method to remove any of these tools just by passing its name:

halo.removeHandle('clone');

Alternatively, you can disable tools via CSS:

.halo .handle.clone { display: none; } /* disables the clone tool */

Also, the same way you would hide halo tools, as explained above, you can reposition them. For example, to reposition the remove icon tool to the bottom left corner, you could do:

.halo .handle.remove {
       left: -25px;
       bottom: -25px;
       top: auto;
       right: auto;
    }

Another way to remove/reposition tool handles in the Halo is in JavaScript:

halo.removeHandle('clone');
    halo.changeHandle('remove', { position: 'se' });

The code above removes the clone tool from the Halo and re-positions the remove tool to the bottom right (south-east).

Each Halo can also be styled in CSS (disabling tools, repositioning, changing icons, ...) based on the type of element the Halo is displayed for. The Halo <div> container stores the type of the element in its data-type attribute. This makes it easy to target a halo for a certain type of element in your CSS. For instance, let's say we want to hide the remove tool only for an element of type "standard.Rectangle". We can do this:

.halo[data-type="standard.Rectangle"] .remove { display: none; }

Customizing halo tools

Halo provides three methods for adding, removing and changing custom tools: addHandle(), removeHandle() and changeHandle(). Use the addHandle() method to add new tools to your halo:

halo.addHandle({ name: 'myaction', position: 's', icon: 'myaction.png' });
    halo.on('action:myaction:pointerdown', (evt) => {
        evt.stopPropagation();
        alert('My custom action.');
    });

In the example above, we added a new tool named myaction, positioned the tool to the south (bottom-center) and used our own icon myaction.png. When the user clicks on our tool, Halo triggers an event named action:[name]:pointerdown. We can handle the event by listening on the halo object. Similarly, the Halo triggers action:[name]:pointermove and action:[name]:pointerup events. This gives us a high flexibility in implementing our own actions.

For removing a halo tool, use the removeHandle(name) method:

halo.removeHandle('myaction')

changeHandle() method allows us to change halo tool handles. For instance, if we want to change a position of the clone tool, we could use:

halo.changeHandle('clone', { position: 'se' })

Pie menu type of Halo

To display the Halo control panel as a pie menu, just set the type option to 'pie':

new joint.ui.Halo({ cellView: myElementView, type: 'pie' })

You can still add your own actions as you would normally do with the default 'surrounding' type of Halo.

Toolbar type of Halo

To display the Halo control panel as a small toolbar above an element, just set the type option to 'toolbar':

new joint.ui.Halo({ cellView: myElementView, type: 'toolbar' })

Links with Halo

It is also possible to use the Halo plugin with links, as the following demo illustrates.

API

Events

The Halo object triggers events when the user manipulates its tools. These events can be handled by using the Halo on() method.

halo.on('action:link:add', (link) => {
        if (!link.get('source').id || !link.get('target').id) {
            link.remove();
        }
    });