Shapes

Shapes are are a useful visual tool when you need to differentiate between different types of elements. Kumu has several tools you can use to customize elements' shapes—this guide will help you pick which tool is the right one for your use case:

• Assigning shapes manually

• Assigning shapes to specific selections

• Assigning shapes to all elements automatically

• Assigning shapes from the Advanced Editor

Assigning shapes manually

If you just need to assign shapes to a handful of elements, we recommend using the direct decoration toolbar. Hover over any element, then click the Size/Shape icon , and pick a shape from the dropdown.

shapes direct decoration

Assigning shapes to specific selections

To assign a shape to a specific selection of elements, use the element decoration builder.

1. Open the Basic Editor

2. Click Decorate elements

3. Check the Add shape box, and pick a shape

4. If you'd like to add your shape decoration to the legend, fill in the Legend box

decoration builder shapes

Categorizing your elements with shapes automatically

The quickest way to assign shapes to all elements automatically based on their profile data is the Shape By tool. Open the Basic Editor, and use the Shape By tool to pick a field from your elements' profiles. Note that Shape By only works with fields that can hold one value, like Element Type.

Automatic shaping by element type

When you use Shape By, legend entries will be created for you automatically.

legend shapes

Assigning shapes from the Advanced Editor

In the Advanced Editor, you can use the shape property to assign shapes. Here's the basic syntax:

element {
  shape: circle;
}

You can replace element with any element selector, and circle with any valid shape:

• circle

• triangle

• square

• rectangle

• pill

• diamond

• pentagon

• hexagon

• octagon

Two things to note:

• When choosing the rectangle or pill shape, you also need to indicate their width and height:

element {
  shape: rectangle; 
  height: 100;
  width: 420;
}

• To change the size of any shape other than the square, rectangle, or pill, use the size property, instead of width & height:

element {
  shape: triangle; 
  size: 200;
}

More tips for shapes

Instead of setting a shape directly, you can also use the categorize() function to assign shapes based on a field:

element {
  shape: categorize("Element Type");
}

The categorize() function has its own list of default shapes, but you can list your own shapes to customize which ones are used, and in what order:

element {
  shape: categorize("Element Type", diamond, hexagon, triangle);
}

Or, list a shape and a specific field value to control precisely how those shapes get assigned:

element {
  shape: categorize("Element Type", diamond "Person", hexagon "Organization");
}

Finally, if you'd like your categorized shapes to be automatically added to the legend, use the element-shape rule inside a @settings block:

@settings {
  element-shape: categorize("Element Type", diamond, hexagon, triangle);
}

By default, the geo template limits you to squares and straight lines, but if you want it to support all shapes, add @settings { renderer: canvas; } to your Advanced Editor.