Add doted lines for connections
Mladen Stanojević
Currently, you can only use solid lines in Ice Panel, protocols/connections.
However, it would be much clearer and more visually appealing if we had the option to choose between solid and dotted lines depending on the specific need.
From an aesthetic standpoint, I personally find dotted lines more appealing.
Oliver Windle
Thanks for the suggestion Miaden.
We've been very purposeful about what level of formatting we allow in IcePanel to ensure that when users look at diagrams it's easy to understand straight away what certain notation is supposed to mean. Introducing the ability to customise lines means that users would need to understand what you've chosen those lines to represent, which may differ from person to person, which risks adding more complexity. Can I ask for any examples of what you may be choosing to differentiate here between solid and dotted lines?
There may be other ways to communicate these differences e.g. through the use of tags on connections, or the descriptions themselves on the connections.
Keen to hear your thoughts!
Mladen Stanojević
Oliver Windle, thanks for the quick response.
The core issue here is the need to visually distinguish synchronous and asynchronous connections in diagrams to better represent architectural quanta. I've received feedback from customers that these connections are not easily distinguishable (sync and async), which impacts their understanding of the system's fundamental operational units.
While one could technically pin specific technologies to make elements visually distinct, this approach goes against the spirit of the C4 Model, which advises that functional architecture diagrams should not focus on low-level technology details. The emphasis should be on clear communication of architectural concepts.
To address this, leveraging dotted lines for asynchronous connections and solid lines for synchronous connections could provide a clear, universally understood visual cue. This would allow for better distinguishing of architectural quanta – the smallest deployable units with high functional cohesion – without introducing unnecessary technological clutter into higher-level architectural views.
Oliver Windle
Mladen Stanojević Thanks for the additional context, that’s super helpful!
I completely understand where you’re coming from, and I agree there’s definitely more we could explore to help make these types of relationships more visually distinct.
Our main concern is around user-defined notation, what one person considers a clear visual cue (like a dotted vs solid line) might not be obvious to others. Without a shared consistent understanding, it introduces ambiguity. For example: what one user may assume a dotted line means e.g. asynchronous, but this may not have been the intent of the user who drew it, e.g. synchronous.
This can be learned once explained, but users may start applying their own meanings, using dotted lines to represent data flows, optional logic, or dependencies. Our concern is it becomes a slippery slope toward inconsistent and hard to read diagrams.
That said your use case is a strong one, and it reflects a genuine need, especially from teams modelling event-driven or asynchronous systems. It’s something we’ll continue to revisit as we evolve how IcePanel communicates architectural intent.
Thanks very much for the input, it all helps how we shape IcePanel!