Drawing on Command

Mermaid

Article from Issue 212/2018
Author(s):

Mermaid lets you create diagrams from simple text-based statements.

If you want to simplify your documentation and avoid using complex tools like Visio, Dia, or Inkscape for displaying charts and diagrams, Mermaid [1] might be just right for you.

Mermaid, which is based on JavaScript, is similar to open source tools such as Graphviz [2] and JS Sequence Diagrams [3]. These tools generate flow charts and other useful diagrams based on simple text-based commands. Mermaid focuses on UML sequence diagrams, and it supports different output styles that are reminiscent of manual drawings.

Mermaid follows the minimalist concept of Markdown and AsciiDoc formats. This approach opens the door to automated document generation and website integration. The Mermaid project is still relatively unpolished. As you'll learn in this article, the local version has some issues that make it hard to depend on for real production work, but you can use the online Mermaid Live Editor at the project website [4] to generate diagrams and explore the Mermaid command syntax.

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