Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
blog.dornea.nu
Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
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Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#2One of the coolest things about plantuml is the generated PNG actually contains the source code for the image as metadata. If someone gives you an image, they don't also need to send you the source because you can extract it using the plantuml CLI.
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#3One of the coolest things about plantuml is the generated PNG actually contains the source code for the image as metadata. If someone gives you an image, they don't also need to send you the source because you can extract it using the plantuml CLI.
Didn't knew that! Thanks
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#4I started using plantuml more rigorously at work. I've found that collaboration on the drawings/diagrams, is simpler and easier as it can be tracked in Git. One additional thing that I've been using as well is the mdBook plugin to embed and render the images as part of a larger book. This has been helpful for large systems when there are many teams involved. We publish the content as github pages on the repos as well.
I'd like to start doing this with my open-source as well.
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#5I started using plantuml more rigorously at work. I've found that collaboration on the drawings/diagrams, is simpler and easier as it can be tracked in Git. One additional thing that I've been using as well is the mdBook plugin to embed and render the images as part of a larger book. This has been helpful for large systems when there are many teams involved. We publish the content as github pages on the repos as well…
We haven't found the same to be true. The moment there's an extra step involved in rendering the image, the advantages have been lost through numerous outdated copies. We found that people relied on the imagery more than the DSL behind it.
We now publish draw.io SVGs. GitHub renders them and people view them. The rendering engine is effectively the browser which makes it very accessible.
I suppose this means our companies have differing cultures or some other factor I'm not aware of
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#6I'm a big fan of PlantUML. The only issue I have is that the layout algorithm sometimes can be challenging to work with for certain types of diagrams, although this is often due to there being too many nodes in the diagram... so, simplify it?
Nevertheless one improvement I would like to see for PlantUML (and similar tools like Mermaid) is a way to separate content and style from layout... i.e perhaps have a viewer that can pop up and let the user reorganise the elements and save the absolute positioning to a separate sidecar file?
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#7What does PlantUML do better than mermaid?
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#8One of the coolest things about plantuml is the generated PNG actually contains the source code for the image as metadata. If someone gives you an image, they don't also need to send you the source because you can extract it using the plantuml CLI.
draw.io also supports this for .png and .html, so you can just import and continue editing it
Coworkers always accuse me of tomfoolery when I tell them it's already in there
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#9What does PlantUML do better than mermaid?
PlantUML is a command-line tool to generate diagrams in multiple formats that can be saved and shared, it also has a GUI. Mermaid is a javascript library for rendering simple text definitions to useful diagrams in the browser, although there is a separate command line tool. It has chromium as a dependency.
Last I heard, PlantUML has support for more types of diagrams, allows for themes and more customization.
Re: Documentation as Code for Cloud Using PlantUML
#10What does PlantUML do better than mermaid?
Lots more chart types, or at least chart types that aren't found anywhere else. JSON render, SALT UI markup, regex diagram, a YAML renderer. That said, Mermaid also has some unique diagrams, like the fantastic git renderer. And it runs on JS only. So Mermaid has probably got longer legs, while stuff like PlantUML and Vega/Vega-Lite taking on more edge cases.