Process Flow Line Overlaps Existing Elements When Appending Gateway

[sarahekelley]

Describe the bug

When appending a gateway to an element that already has a connected element aligned vertically, the process flow (that is created via the append action) routes on top of the existing connected element. This behavior is inconsistent with appending other elements like Tasks or Events, where the automatic routing of the avoids the existing connected elements.

Steps to reproduce

1. Select an element on the Canvas (e.g. Event, Gateway, Task)
2. Append any element to the selected element.
3. Select the original element again.
4. From the Append Elements Context menu, choose 'Append gateway'
5. Observe that the automatically generated process flow line routes on top of the existing connected element.

Expected behavior

When appending a gateway, the automatically generated process flow line should route to avoid overlapping with previously appended elements, consistent with the behavior observed when appending tasks, intermediate/boundary events, or end events.

Environment

• Operating System: Windows 11
• Camunda Modeler Version: 5.27
• Installed Plug-Ins: None

Additional context

This issue impacts user workflow efficiency, as users must manually reroute the process flow line to prevent overlap with other connected elements when adding gateways. The inconsistency in behavior between appending gateways and other element types may lead to confusion and extra work for users.

[nikku]

Thanks for opening this issue, I can reproduce it.

In this particular case I'm not aware of a workaround, other than manual re-layouting, a tedious task.

The observed behavior violates our do the hard work to make it simple and know the context design principles.