Type: Questions & Answers

The graph visualization library yFiles comprises different functionality which is grouped into so-called components. At present, there are three components: Basic, Layout, and Viewer. The actual Java packages that are included with either component can be seen in the detailed component listings on our website.

More important than the components are the available yFiles package distributions. At present, there are four distributions: Basic, Layout, Viewer, and Complete. The following table gives a mapping from requirements to yFiles package distribution.

Requirements		yFiles Package Distribution
Pure structural and graph theoretic problems.		yFiles Basic
Automatic layout without any kind of visual presentation.		yFiles Layout
Some kind of visual presentation, e.g., an editor with user interaction, a canvas to show a graph, or image export of a graph.		yFiles Viewer
Both, automatic layout and some kind of visual presentation.		yFiles Complete

Note

Actually, all four yFiles package distributions include yFiles Basic.