EM palette for yEd

What it is

The EM palette is the canonical Extended Matrix node palette for yEd Graph Editor. It is a small .graphml file that, once imported into yEd, adds an Extended Matrix section to yEd’s right-hand drag-and-drop panel — with all the typed nodes (US, USV, USD, SF, RSF, DOC, EXT, Property, …) and the standard connectors as pre-styled stencils.

The palette is to yEd what an add-on is to Blender: it does not change the tool itself, but extends it with the EM-specific vocabulary so that the matrix you draw is structurally identical to those authored through other EM tools, and is round-trippable across the toolchain.

yEd itself is free and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. The palette travels in the EM language repository.

Capabilities

• Canonical node stencils — every EM node type with the right shape, border colour, and label conventions (Stratigraphic Units, paradata nodes, group containers, source nodes, extractors, properties).
• Canonical connectors — the standard EM edges (is_after, is_part_of, survive_in_epoch, changed_from, …) pre-styled so that semantics are reflected in the visual.
• Round-trip fidelity — files authored through the palette stay importable in EM Tools, s3dgraphy, and any downstream consumer without manual cleanup.

Why a separate tool

While yEd is general-purpose, the EM matrix is a specific archaeological formalism. The palette enforces the canonical node shapes, border colours, and label patterns expected by the EM toolchain (EM Tools, Heriverse, s3dgraphy round-trip). Authoring in yEd without the palette is possible but breaks downstream interoperability.

Installing

1. Install yEd from yworks.com.
2. Open Edit → Manage Palette… → Import Section…
3. Select the EM palette .graphml file (download it from the Extended Matrix repository — pick the branch matching the EM version you are using).
4. Tick the new section so it is visible.

The step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots lives in the Set up the yEd palette mini tutorial.

Versions

The palette tracks the EM formal language version. See the Versions page for the support matrix.