[tex-live] Arbitrary LaTeX markup in graphs with auto layout facilities (only logical relation specification)

[Karl-Philipp Richter]

Hi together,
I have the following dream and would like to know someone know whether
it has come true already or knows a combination of programs
(inside/outside LaTeX world) which could achieve the following:

  * put arbitrary LaTeX in a directed graph of arbitrary size on both
nodes and edges (edge labels), I guess the right reliable rendering of a
minipage for edges and nodes should be sufficient as (almost) anything
can be handled inside) (can be done with dot2tex, dot2texi, tikz & Co)
  * specifying nothing but the logical relation of graph elements (nodes
and direction of edges, maybe some tweaks like hyper(sub)graph
construction, but the latter is more of an extension of my request),
e.g. with a markup language (like dot), and let a layout engine do
everything in terms of positioning the nodes and edges (dot2tex and
dot2texi with layout engine dot, spring and neato, twopi, circo, fdp and
sfdp exist, but they have the following issues (that I experienced so
far. According to my - maybe/hopefully - outdated research they comply
with their technical specification):
    * dot: only hiearchical, 1000 unconnected nodes would be put in a
line next to each other (v2.9.0) (that not an auto layout for a graph of
arbitrary size in my terms) (see
https://github.com/kjellmf/dot2tex/issues/18 for further infos)
    * neato: buggy,  doesn't allow arbitrary edges (e.g. a minipage),
intented for undirected graphs
    * twopi, circo: only circular, also unsatisfying with 1000
unconnected nodes
    * fdp, sfdp: for undirected graphs only, have trouble with arbitrary
edge lables as well

I have trouble understanding why so many packages are limited to
undirected graphs.

The use case is nothing less but the ultimative collection of (my)
knowledge and my conviction that it is less annoying to scroll in a DIN
A-10 PDF in the viewer (naively assuming there's one that could handle
such a file...) than turning paper pages, clicking wiki links and
writing SQL statements (or whatever fantastic knowledge storage you can
imagine). And I never want to position a node in this graph, ever.

Curious about your inputs!

Best regards,
Kalle Richter

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