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

In this chapter, you learned how to modify the configuration of Mermaid with directives, the built-in way of modifying the configuration for a specific diagram. You also learned how to use directives, which are statements in the code of the diagram that allow you to update its configuration. You came to understand what can be achieved with directives. You also learned how to set up the base configuration for all the diagrams on a site. Finally, you learned about the different configuration options that are available for Mermaid and how to block certain configuration options from being modified by directives.

In the next chapter, we will continue with the topic of configuration and look more closely at theming, as well as how to modify the colors that Mermaid uses when rendering diagrams. We will look at the different themes that are available and how to create a custom theme with the colors we like.