Book Image

The Official Guide to Mermaid.js

By : Knut Sveidqvist, Ashish Jain
Book Image

The Official Guide to Mermaid.js

By: Knut Sveidqvist, Ashish Jain

Overview of this book

Mermaid is a JavaScript-based charting and diagramming tool that lets you represent diagrams using text and code, which simplifies the maintenance of complex diagrams. This is a great option for developers as they’re more familiar with code, rather than using special tools for generating diagrams. Besides, diagrams in code simplify maintenance and ensure that the code is supported by version control systems. In some cases, Mermaid makes refactoring support for name changes possible while also enabling team collaboration for review distribution and updates. Developers working with any system will be able to put their knowledge to work with this practical guide to using Mermaid for documentation. The book is also a great reference for looking up the syntax for specific diagrams when authoring diagrams. You’ll start by learning the importance of accurate and visual documentation. Next, the book introduces Mermaid and establishes how to use it to create effective documentation. By using different tools, editors, or a custom documentation platform, you’ll also understand how to use Mermaid syntax for various diagrams. Later chapters cover advanced configuration settings and theme options to manipulate your diagram as per your needs. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-versed with Mermaid diagrams and how they can be used in your workflows.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with Mermaid
7
Section 2: The Most Popular Diagrams
12
Section 3: Powerful Diagrams for the Advanced User

Chapter 8: Rendering Class Diagrams

A class diagram is a graphical representation that is used to visualize and describe an object-oriented system by showcasing the system's classes, their attributes, their members, and the kind of relationship that exists among the classes. The object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm is based on the concept of classes and objects, and a class diagram is an efficient way to describe the system. Class diagrams are among the most popular diagrams in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). In this chapter, you will learn how you can use Mermaid to generate UML-inspired class diagrams. You will learn how to create classes, how to define their attributes and methods, how to add different relationships between classes, and how to annotate them. You will also learn how to add interactivity to your class diagrams, and how to customize your classes using custom styles and overriding the theme variables.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter...