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 9: Illustrating Data with Pie Charts and Understanding Requirement Diagrams

A pie chart is an excellent choice of diagram when you need to display a dataset with a stark contrast between figures. It is a circular chart that represents how a numerical dataset is related, showcasing it as slices of a pie that have a size proportional to the numbers of the dataset.

A requirement diagram is a special diagram that is used in visualizing requirements in software or a system. It also highlights the relationships between requirements and other elements in the system. Requirement diagrams were first introduced under the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) specification. SysML was originally created by the SysML Partners' Open-Source Specification Project in 2003 and it served as the dialect for the Unified Modeling Language (UML) 2.0. The Mermaid syntax for a requirement diagram is heavily inspired by SysML version 1.6.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use Mermaid to...