How to dynamically display a multiline text in D3.js?

Question

I need to display a multiline text in a SVG:Text using D3.js.

The sample data looks as follows and I want to display "all" the "titles" under a single node for every author and not as an individual node in a force directional layout.

Sample data

{
    {"author":"Author1", "group":"fiction", "books" : [
        {"title":"Book Title1", "rating":3},
        {"title":"Book Title2", "rating":4}
    ]},
    {"author":"Author2", "group":"non-fiction", "books" : [
        {"title":"Book Title3", "rating":3},
    ]}
}

SVG:text takes only one text entry and displays in a single line, so I have add more text and adjust the "dy"? or retractively collec node information and replace?

Thanks for the tips.

Answer 1

You have the following options.

• You can, as you've mentioned, add more than one text element with the appropriate spacing.
• You can also use multiple tspan elements within a text element to the same effect. Again, you would have to set the spacing yourself.
• You can use foreignObject to embed a suitable HTML element (e.g. a div) that will take care of the line breaking, spacing etc. for you. For an example of that, see e.g. here.

I would go with the HTML embedding option unless you have a specific reason not to. It makes the actual text formatting so much easier than the other options.