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

Exploring the Mermaid Live Editor

The Mermaid Live Editor is a free-to-use online editor for rendering Mermaid diagrams in real time. In Chapter 2, How to Use Mermaid, we learned about the various use cases and different tools and platforms that support Mermaid. Many of these platforms and tools either have native support for Mermaid or allow integration by means of extensions, plugins, and so on. All those are great options in their respective use cases, but when it comes to super-easy access to a free Mermaid diagram scratchpad, to quickly render and save a Mermaid diagram, the Mermaid Live Editor will be the preferred choice.

In this section, you will a learn a great deal about the Mermaid Live Editor. You will be guided from scratch, starting from accessing the Mermaid Live Editor to understanding the different features and widgets of the Mermaid Live Editor. Once you are done reading this section, you will be familiar with the Mermaid Live Editor and will be ready to render...