When is a diagonal and when is a right-angled connection alignment useful?

Which connection alignment is useful depends on the preferred model layout. Even the model layout may already have semantic relevance. For example, progressions over time or priorities are often reflected in a top-to-bottom arrangement.

Straight connection alignment

A straight connection alignment is useful when a large number of objects have to be placed close to one central object. One typical example is the star schema for a Data Warehouse modeling project.

Right-angled connection alignment

A right-angled connection alignment is particularly suitable for hierarchy models that take the form of a tree.