##Symbol positioning
##symbol position rectangle arc ... text shape left right center middle
##Use 'symbol <type>' to draw onto the chart. <type> can be 'rectangle', 'arc', '...', 'text', 'cross' or 'shape' the latter drawing an arbitrary shape.##Continue with the vertical position: use two markers separated by a dash. You can use only one and specify the height with the 'ysize' attribute.##Then specify the horizontal place by using one or two of 'left', 'right', 'center' followed by 'at <entity>'. You can continue by '--', '-', '+', '++' or '+-<offset>' to specify a position left or right of the entity. If you use only one designator, you can specify width using the 'xsize=<pixels>' attribute.
a, b, c, d;
a->b: Message 1
      goes here;
mark m1;
b->c: Message 2
      goes here;
mark m2;
c->d: Messgae 3
      goes here;
defstyle symbol [fill.color="yellow,200"];
symbol rectangle m1-m2 left at a  [xsize=30];
symbol rectangle   -m2 left at b- [xsize=30, ysize=30];
symbol rectangle m1-   left at c+ [xsize=30, ysize=30];a, b, c, d;
hspace -a 100; #make room on left side
symbol text left at b+: Two\nlines;
symbol rectangle right at b-: Two longer\nlines;
defstyle symbol [fill.color="yellow,200"];
symbol rectangle right at a- [xsize=30, ysize=30];
symbol rectangle left at a +30 [xsize=30, ysize=30];
symbol rectangle center at c-- [xsize=30, ysize=30];
symbol rectangle left at a-- right at d++ [ysize=30];
symbol rectangle center at b left at a [ysize=30];