View Settings

View settings control layout behavior and visual presentation for each view. Access them by clicking the canvas background (deselecting all elements) or selecting a view in the Views panel.

Layout engine

ArchTect supports multiple layout engines. Each view can use a different engine, and the choice is saved per view in the DSL properties block.

Engine	Description	Best for
Default	The built-in default layout	General use
Graphviz	Classic graph layout engine	Dense, interconnected graphs
Dagre	Directed acyclic graph layout	Tree-like structures
ELK	Eclipse Layout Kernel — hierarchical, layered layouts	Complex diagrams with many layers

To change the layout engine:

Click the canvas background to show view-level settings in the Inspector.
Select the desired engine from the Layout Engine dropdown.
The view re-renders with the new engine.

Saved in DSL

The layout engine choice is stored in the view’s properties block in the DSL. For example:

systemContext mySystem "Context" {
  include *
  autoLayout
  properties {
    layoutEngine graphviz
  }
}

Each layout engine exposes additional settings in the Inspector when selected (e.g., spacing, node separation, edge routing).

Auto layout direction

Direction	Description
Top to bottom	Default flow direction
Bottom to top	Reversed vertical flow
Left to right	Horizontal flow
Right to left	Reversed horizontal flow

Themes

Themes control the visual style of elements and relationships. You can:

Apply theme presets — Use built-in theme styles
Add theme URLs — Load external Structurizr themes (e.g., AWS icons, Azure icons)
Reorder themes — Theme order controls precedence; later themes override earlier ones

In DSL

views {
  theme default
  themes https://static.structurizr.com/themes/amazon-web-services-2023.01.31/theme.json
}

In the Inspector

Select a view (click canvas background) and use the Themes section to add, remove, or reorder themes.

See Themes for the full theme reference.

View title and description

Each view can have a title and description displayed on the canvas:

systemContext mySystem "Context" {
  include *
  autoLayout
  title "System Context Diagram"
  description "Shows external users and systems"
}