My goal is to get a rectangle like the one below, but with text in the nested rectangles.
Line types could be for example the following:
I saw tikz: Multiple splits of rectangle, but it does not answer the question on the line types. Beyond that, I am a beginner using Tikz, and I'd like the answer explained, since the linked answer is complex to understand.
Thanks!
I'd suggest to use a table instead. The tabularray package even has a tikz library, so if you need additional tikz elements, you could add them at will.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\NewTblrDashStyle{longdashed}{on 4pt off 2pt}
\begin{document}
\begin{tblr}{
colspec={X},
vlines,hlines,
row{2}={halign=r},
row{3}={halign=c},
hline{2}={dashed},
hline{3}={longdashed},
hline{4}={dotted}
}
{box 1 says hello\\also in second line}\\
{box 2 does not say\\ anything}\\
{probably I would prefer\\ all text centred}\\
{Or maybe I'd prefer\\ all left aligned?}\\
\end{tblr}
\end{document}
You could try the following option. This avoids the more complicated rectangle split machinery and gives direct control over every line type.
\documentclass[tikz,border=5mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
thickline/.style={line width=1.2pt},
longdash/.style={dash pattern=on 12pt off 7pt},
every node/.style={font=\sffamily\small}
]
% Size of the big rectangle
\def\W{12}
\def\H{8}
% y-coordinates of the horizontal dividing lines
\def\yA{6.0}
\def\yB{4.1}
\def\yC{2.2}
% Outer rectangle
\draw[thickline] (0,0) rectangle (\W,\H);
% Internal horizontal lines
\draw[thickline,longdash] (0,\yA) -- (\W,\yA);
\draw[thickline] (0,\yB) -- (\W,\yB);
\draw[thickline,dotted] (0,\yC) -- (\W,\yC);
% Text
\node[anchor=north west, align=left] at (1.4,7.4)
{box1 says hello\\also in second line};
\node[anchor=north west, align=left] at (6.1,5.5)
{box2 does not say\\anything};
\node[align=center] at (6,3.25)
{probably I would prefer\\all text centered};
\node[anchor=west, align=left] at (0.9,1.1)
{Or maybe I'd prefer\\all left aligned?};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Here below is my proposal based on my comment with shapes.multipart:
\documentclass[tikz,border=5pt]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.multipart}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[
align=left,draw,ultra thick,
minimum width=8cm,
text width=6cm,
rectangle split,
rectangle split parts=4,
rectangle split draw splits={false}
] (tmp)
{%
box 1 says hello\\also in second line
\nodepart[align=right]{two}
box 2 does not say\\
anything
\nodepart[align=center]{three}
probably I would prefer\\
all text centred
\nodepart[align=left]{four}
Or maybe I'd prefer\\
all left aligned?
};
\draw[dashed,thick] (tmp.text split west)--(tmp.text split east);
\draw[longdashed,thick] (tmp.two split west)--(tmp.two split east);
\draw[dotted,thick] (tmp.three split west)--(tmp.three split east);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
If you stick to use tikz and want to regards them as a whole, that is an option.
With a tabular {NiceTabular} of nicematrix and horizontal rules drawn by TikZ.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations}
\begin{document}
\begin{NiceTabular}{|X[l]X[c]X[r]|}[cell-space-limits=2pt]
\Hline
box 1 says hello also in second line \\
\hdashedline
& & box 2 does not say anything \\
\Hline[tikz=dotted]
\Block{1-3}{probably I would prefer all text centred} \\
\Hline[tikz = loosely dotted]
Or maybe I'd prefer all left aligned? \\
\Hline
\end{NiceTabular}
\end{document}
