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

Summary

Well, you have now completed this chapter and learned about not one but two simple yet useful diagrams. You learned the syntax to create pie chart diagrams in Mermaid. You know that adding a title to a pie chart is optional and can be skipped if you are only interested in the pie chart part of the diagram. You now have the knowledge to control and override the color of each section of a pie chart. You also understand what a requirement diagram is and why it is used. You learned the syntax to define the different types of requirements and elements in a diagram. Also, now you know the different types of relationships that exist in a requirement diagram, and how to define them in Mermaid.

You also learned how to use the requirement diagram-specific theme variables to customize the styling of a diagram. Having learned all about these two diagrams, we will now introduce you to the Entity Relationship diagram in the next chapter.