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Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

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Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#31

Post by heluser »

prepend wrote: post #10
cogogo wrote: post #6

Little weird to see this on the lead page… mermaid has been around for a long time. And in general I’ve found its real world use pretty lacking.

I use it and see it many times per month as it’s the preferred way of sticking graphics and diagrams in markdown in git repos and generated static sites. It’s so handy for putting a sequence diagram in your docs and then tracking the changes over time using git. I’m curious what other software developers use if not this. I’ve tried specific graph and drawing tools like lucid and Visio, but the simplicity of mermaid i…

Re what other developers use. I tried mermaid and other text to diagram tools for work, but, as mentioned above, found them lacking. Most companies / teams I know of use something like excalidraw or miro. Definitely matches your simplicity requirements, but, obviously, no git blame

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#32

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

andrewl wrote: post #20
smusamashah wrote: post #2

I have an almost exhaustive list [1] of browser based text to diagram tools. Some specialised tools (like https://sequencediagram.org/ ) so much better at what they do than any generic ones like mermaid. [1] https://xosh.org/text-to-diagram/

I like Mermaid fine, but nothing is perfect. I will look at your list. The tool I always wanted would let me paste in the SQL of my database schema and output a diagram of the tables and relationships. That's SQL and not Markdown or JSON or any other format. Note that DrawDB (www.drawdb.app) does this, although it does not yet handle views. But I have been happy with what it offers so far. Still, I would welcome sugg…

If it's sqlite compatible, then there a many solutions. In general it's trickier.

plug: https://github.com/dgoffredo/sqliteviz

Not web based, though.

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#33

Post by smhanov »

smusamashah wrote: post #2

I have an almost exhaustive list [1] of browser based text to diagram tools. Some specialised tools (like https://sequencediagram.org/ ) so much better at what they do than any generic ones like mermaid. [1] https://xosh.org/text-to-diagram/

I wish WebSequenceDiagrams was further up your list. I guess I have some work to do.

When I made it, nothing like mermaid, plantUML，lucid charts existed. The syntax of most tools was based on Java or graphviz and overly verbose. I was writing an email to a colleague at BlackBerry and wrote out the sequence diagrams as text. I spent the next week making a script to convert it to an image and put it online. Many other tools have since adopted the syntax and I'm happy it has become so widespread.

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#34

Post by mpalmer »

cogogo wrote: post #6

Little weird to see this on the lead page… mermaid has been around for a long time. And in general I’ve found its real world use pretty lacking.

I love it when this happens, people almost always reply with something cool they did with it, or discovered. The link isn't new, often the comments are.

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#35

Post by novia »

jdougan wrote: post #24
NightMKoder wrote: post #13

IMO mermaid is awesome, but for two somewhat indirect reasons: - There’s an almost wysiwig editor for mermaid at https://www.mermaidchart.com/play . It’s very convenient and appropriately changes the layout as you draw arrows! - Notion supports inline mermaid charts in code blocks (with preview!) It’s awesome for putting some architecture diagrams in Eng docs.

Obsidian also supports inline mermaid charts in markdown code blocks. One of those features I don't see mentioned much.

github / gitlab too!

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#36

Post by bredren »

wadewatts wrote: post #7

I love Mermaid diagrams. I let my coding LLMs generate diagrams during architecture design and then afterward for accuracy— Sequence Diagrams, CSD’s, Flowcharts, DFDs, and ERDs. Couldn’t be simpler. I’m happy.

Yes, I think this is why mermaid is hard to beat right now. LLMs seem to understand the syntax well.

I’ve used AI to build mermaid diagrams during ongoing system design discussions from transcripts as they progress.

I’ve rendered them, shared them and then the group can look at them and iterate very quickly.

A bunch of the rendering tools aren’t great, but some are and decent basic styling makes a big difference.

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#37

Post by davely »

ngm7 wrote: post #28

I'm slightly surprised excalidraw ( https://excalidraw.com/ ) is not in the comments. I use it regularly to convey ideas to my devs and designers. Plus, it exports to json! Someone wrote a library to convert mermaid to excalidraw as well. We're now experimenting with creating design questions to ask in interviews with excalidraw/mermaid

I did a system design interview awhile back using Excalidraw. I really enjoyed it (though I also frequently use it for normal work stuff, so was familiar with it).

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#38

Post by lubujackson »

LifeIsBio wrote: post #17

One of my favorite applications of multimodal LLMs thus far is the ability to: 1. Draw a DAG of whatever pipeline I’m working on with pen and paper. 2. Take a photo of the graph, mistakes and all. 3. Ask ChatGPT to translate the image into mermaid.js Given how complicated the pipelines are that I’m working with and the sloppiness of the hand drawn image, it’s truly amazing how well this workflow works.

Alternatively, ask the LLM to create a mermaid DAG of your current code.

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#39

Post by fastball »

novia wrote: post #35
jdougan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsidian also supports inline mermaid charts in markdown code blocks. One of those features I don't see mentioned much.

github / gitlab too!

Supernotes too!

Re: Mermaid: Generation of diagrams like flowcharts or sequence diagrams from text

#40

Post by edoceo »

codetrotter wrote: post #11
edoceo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70! That is awesome

70!? That’s more than a Googol!

You're catching more heck than me but, for real it's a great competitive cross cut. Maybe my remarks seemed flippant but, curated list like this is what I wish Google or AI could deliver. It's quality content.
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