Graphviz drawing - make a box that starts at one node and goes to the end of another one

Question

I have a timeline and would like a box to be drawn next to a particular number of years

digraph timeline {

    node [fontsize=24, shape = plaintext];

    1940 -> 1950;
    1950 -> 1955;
    1955 -> 1960;
 
 
    node [fontsize=20, shape = box];
    { rank=same;  1940 test; }

}

This places a timeline on the left hand side going from 1940 to 1950 and so forth. I would like draw a box next to the numbers that starts at 1940 - which is what I do now with { rank=same; 1940 test; } and that ends with 1955.

Here is an example of the box drawn at 1940

Here is an example of the box drawn at 1955 with code { rank=same; 1955 test; }

I would like to have the box drawn from the start of 1940 position to the end of 1955 position, so encompassing these two boxes right now.

Answer 1

Tricky solution is to draw a cluster and place invisible nodes inside it using style=invis. Then align the cluster with the timeline using newrank.
Script:

digraph timeline {
    newrank=true;

    node [fontsize=24, shape = plaintext];

    1940 -> 1950 -> 1955 -> 1960;
    
    subgraph cluster_1 {
        test [fontsize=20]
        cl_start [shape=none style=invis]
        cl_end [shape=none style=invis]
        cl_start -> test -> cl_end [style=invis]
    }
    
    {rank=same;1940;cl_start}
    {rank=same;1955;cl_end}
}

Result: