[pgf-tikz] [Question] Automata why no graph

[Henri Menke]

On 05/06/21, 19:02, l.mail.n--- via pgf-tikz wrote:
> Hi,
> in all templates I found, drawing automatas is done by creating nodes and placing them to explicit positions (mostly relative to other nodes). The fact that one is forced to manually place the nodes is something that I'm wondering about. Is there a reason why automatas normally are not set as graphs (since in almost all points I currently can think about they are)? Is this because the tikz-automata layout suggests doing so? If yes, what was the reason for not using a graph?

The reason is very simple: The automata library is much older than the
graphdrawing mechanism. It hasn't been updated to use graphs mainly for
compatibility reasons. Graphdrawing requires LuaTeX and old documents
using automata might not work with LuaTeX.

> The reason why this comes to me, is that for graphs as far as I skimmed the tikz code there are automatic layout methods implemented and in many occasions it would be great to use them to draw automatas (at least for a first suggestion how the graph can be laid out, on most occasions the end result will most probably still be manually laid out).

We're open to PRs introducing a new layout engine for automata.

Cheers, Henri

> 
> Regards
> Lukas