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

Advanced Configuration options and Comments

In this section, you will cover the different configuration options that can be used with a Gantt chart. These configuration options can alter how your Gantt chart will look when rendered. 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 the configuration options first.

Configuration options for a Gantt Chart

The configuration options can be used either via directives or when using a mermaid.initialize() method call. In this chapter's examples, we will use them via directives. For more details on using configuration options and the different ways in which they can be used, please refer to Chapter 4, Modifying Configurations with or without Directives. Let's start with our first configuration option to mirror the timeline axis at the top as well.

topAxis

This configuration option is used...