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

Using Annotations and comments

In this section, you will cover what annotations are and how to add them in a class diagram. You will also see how to add comments to your Mermaid code, such that it does not impact the rendering of the diagrams but still makes the code more meaningful. Let's start with annotations first.

Adding Annotations

Annotations in class diagrams are like decorative-marker text that is attached to a class, such that it adds a specific meaning to that class. In a way, you can say it is like assigning metadata or a tag to a specific class that clearly highlights its nature. For example, if a class is to be used as an interface or a service, adding an annotation will highlight that specific nature prominently in the class diagram as well.

As in a typical UML class diagram, annotations in Mermaid are specified between a set of opening and closing double angular brackets, such as << annotationText >>, and in the class diagram syntax, they are...