Notes:
- What makes it easier to read is:
- Everything except relational arcs reads left-to-right, just like XDI statements.
- The outer root node is always the far left edge—the starting point (with no address)—exactly like an XDI statement.
- For contextual arcs, labels are directly above each horizontal line.
- Relational arcs stand out because they are the only curved lines.
- It is easier to see the transition points between roots, entities, attributes, and values.
- What makes it easier to draw is:
- All contextual arcs are straight lines—either directly horizontal, or vertical+horizontal—which means in most drawing tools like Powerpoint or Visio there is a connector shape that does this automatically.
- It is easy to vertically align nodes to see "levels" of contextual nesting.
- It is easy and fast to adjust sections of the graph up or down to make room for new statements.
Please post any thoughts about further ideas or improvements -- this is the format I plan to use for XDI Core spec illustrations.
Also, I can post the Powerpoint file I'm using to make these, but the format is trivially easy (the only secret is to made the circle and diamond shapes exactly the same height so that everything snaps to grid easily).