Horizontal chart-style arrows between nodes

Question

I have five nodes defined and positioned as following:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning, fit, calc, shapes, arrows}
\renewcommand{\figurename}{Figure}
    \begin{figure}[!htb]
        \begin{tikzpicture} [title/.style={font=\fontsize{18}{18}\color{black!45}},
            block/.style={rectangle, draw, fill=blue!23, rounded corners, minimum height=4em},
            bloc/.style={rectangle, draw, fill=green!23, rounded corners, minimum height=2em},
            store/.style={cylinder, draw, shape border rotate=90, aspect=0.4, minimum height=1.5cm, minimum width=1.2cm, fill=cyan!23},
            dot/.style={circle, fill=black, minimum size=2pt, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=2pt},
            blob/.style={cloud, draw, cloud puffs=17.8, cloud ignores aspect, minimum width=4cm, minimum height=2.5cm, align=center},
            link/.style={latex-latex, shorten <=8pt, shorten >=1pt}]
            % Place nodes
            \node [title] (backend) at (5.5,10.05) {Sample};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server3) at (3.7,6.75) {Component A};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server1) at (7.15,9.0) {Component B\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server2) at (7.15,7.45) {Component C\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server4) at (7.15,5.9) {Component D\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server5) at (7.15,4.35) {Component E\\(Blah)};
            \node [draw=black!50, fit={(backend) (server1) (server2) (server3) (server4) (server5)}] (sample) {};
        \end{tikzpicture}
        \caption{A Test Graph}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

I want to make float-chart-style arrows between Component A and the other four nodes, and I want them look like in the answer to this question: Horizontal hierarchy tree in tikz-qtree: bad layout for longer node-names, but with arrow heads at both ends. In other words, ignoring other parts, replace nice-child0 with Component A, and grandchild0-0-grandchild0-3 with Component B-Component E in my example.

Is there any way to do this without using the tree packages?

Gonzalo Medina · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-03T19:53:54.747

Something like this?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning, fit, calc, shapes, arrows}
\renewcommand{\figurename}{Figure}

\begin{document}
    \begin{figure}[!htb]
\centering
        \begin{tikzpicture} [title/.style={font=\fontsize{18}{18}\color{black!45}},
            block/.style={rectangle, draw, fill=blue!23, rounded corners, minimum height=4em},
            bloc/.style={rectangle, draw, fill=green!23, rounded corners, minimum height=2em},
            store/.style={cylinder, draw, shape border rotate=90, aspect=0.4, minimum height=1.5cm, minimum width=1.2cm, fill=cyan!23},
            dot/.style={circle, fill=black, minimum size=2pt, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=2pt},
            blob/.style={cloud, draw, cloud puffs=17.8, cloud ignores aspect, minimum width=4cm, minimum height=2.5cm, align=center},
            link/.style={latex-latex, shorten <=8pt, shorten >=1pt}]
            % Place nodes
            \node [title] (backend) at (5.5,10.05) {Sample};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server3) at (3.7,6.75) {Component A};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server1) at (7.15,9.0) {Component B\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server2) at (7.15,7.45) {Component C\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server4) at (7.15,5.9) {Component D\\(Blah)};
            \node [block, outer sep=5pt, align=center] (server5) at (7.15,4.35) {Component E\\(Blah)};
            \node [draw=black!50, fit={(backend) (server1) (server2) (server3) (server4) (server5)}] (sample) {};

\foreach \i in {1,2,4,5}
  \draw[<->] (server3.east) -- +(10pt,0) |- (server\i.west);
        \end{tikzpicture}
        \caption{A Test Graph}
    \end{figure}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Instead of "manually" adding 10pt to the x-coordinate in

 \foreach \i in {1,2,4,5}
  \draw[<->] (server3.east) -- +(10pt,0) |- (server\i.west);

one can use

\foreach \i in {1,2,4,5}
  \draw[<->] let \p1= (server2.west|-server3.east) in 
    (server3.east) -- +( $ 0.5*(\x1,\y1) - 0.5*(server3.east) $ ) |- (server\i.west);

Horizontal chart-style arrows between nodes

1 Answers1