Reading a node’s sockets: Direction and type

Every socket has two things worth reading: a direction and a type. Together they tell you how a node connects to the rest of your graph.

Direction: in or out

• An In socket is where something enters the node.
• An Out socket is where the node’s result leaves.

Type: what flows through it

A socket also has a type – the kind of thing that travels through it. You connect sockets of the same type. The main types are:

• Data – actual values: the text, numbers, and content from your datasource. By far the most common.
• Style – a style to apply (paragraph, character, object, or cell).
• Action – a behaviour passed along to act on something.
• Hyperlink – link information.

Success and Fail: only on conditions

Condition nodes are the exception. They carry Success and Fail sockets so you can route what happens when a condition is or isn’t met. Under the hood these are really Data – the same content flows through them – but they’re drawn separately so you can branch on the outcome.

Dynamically named sockets are always Data

Some nodes create their own sockets on the fly, with custom names – a dynamic condition node, for example, can spin up an output socket per case. However they’re labelled, these dynamic sockets are always Data sockets. The name is just a label; the type underneath is Data.

Reading a node

Direction tells you which way things move; type tells you what can connect to what. Read both and you can wire even an unfamiliar node correctly.

Next

See what makes data actually move along these connections: How Data Flows Through the Editor (Pull Model)