Archive for the ‘Diagram’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/17
During my cancer treatments I missed a lot of fun things, including that, a PlantUML extension for vscode (Visual Studio Code) matured into a well-maintained one.
I bumped into it when revisiting git – How to integrate UML diagrams into GitLab or GitHub – Stack Overflow (GitLab was first to natively support PlantUML; hopefully GitHub follows one day) and found the profile of [Wayback/Archive] Fuhrmanator which mentioned the vscode PlantUML extension.
Some links below, as I think it is a cool one!.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/12/11
Despite UML (Unified Modelling Language) not having a specific diagram mode for computer networks, PlantUML does support a computer network diagram mode.
Here are some links that got me going to design a site to site VPN situation that I will document in more detail later on this blog.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Diagram, Event, PlantUML, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2023/02/15
Forgot to schedule this in 2014, so here it finally is, as the content is still relevant:
A long time ago (almost 10 years) I did some stuff with State Machines in .NET.
Since then the world has changed, and a lot more libraries have become available.
As I mainly use .NET and Delphi and there is a reasonable chance I need to do some more state machine work, here are some links about State Machines in both environments.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, C#, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Diagram, Event, Java, Java Platform, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2020/08/18
A while ago, I had to create a bit more complex component diagrams than the simple ones I used to create in PlantUML.
Some links that helped me:
- Linking between packages:
- a
- Note I still do not understand why I cannot name a package like
cloud [Back Office] as BO { .... }
- Class diagrams have [WayBack]
package styles (Node, Rectangle, Folder, Frame, Cloud, Database); component diagrams have various grouping keywords (package, node, folder, frame, cloud, database) which you can nest.
- Note you can perform
[Component Description] as ComponentName, but not database [Database Description] as DatabaseName.
- For a tool that does automatic lay-out, influencing the lay-out is always a bit of pain, see for instance:
- [WayBack] General and common command to handle graphic layout in diagrams.
- [WayBack] PlantUml define relative position of components – Stack Overflow
- [WayBack] PlantUML Pleasantness: Layout Elements With Hidden Lines – Messages from mrhaki:
' Layout Logging under BackendClient
BackendClient -[hidden]- Logging
- You can even
hide components: [WayBack] Hide function in components diagrams – PlantUML Q&A
- Lots of visual settings can be configured using
skinparam as explained in [WayBack] Changing colors and fonts.
- Even more advanced are
- Not sure I’m ready for this, as I have been living include file and macro nightmares in other environments: [WayBack] Use the preprocessor
- [WayBack] PlantUML in a nutshell: Open-source tool that uses simple textual descriptions to draw UML diagrams.
You can add notes:
- to elements at a certain position (using
note left of elementName, note right of ..., etc)
- the position is only applied when the note is within the same group as the element (otherwise the position is not taken into account)
- you cannot add notes to groups, but the first added
note (not bound to any element) is usually close to the group name: [WayBack] Note at package not class – PlantUML Q&A [Archive.is]
- [WayBack] Grouping and Positioning of Packages/Components: Having Issues – PlantUML Q&A: it is possible to link to/from packages, but their names need to be globally unique.
package PPP {
[AAA]
[BBB]
}
package QQQ {
[CCC]
[DDD]
}
' Linking between packages
PPP --> QQQ
'Linking a component to a package
AAA --> QQQ
'Linking a component to another component
AAA --> CCC
- You can use UML2 style ([WayBack] Component Diagram syntax and features: components and interfaces look different),
but many people still like UML1 better:
UML2 style examples for skinparam that are equivalent:
skinparam component {
Style uml2
}
skinparam {
componentStyle uml2
}
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2020/08/12
This and built-in markdown support made the switch to Visual Studio code from Atom.io so much easier: [WayBack] PlantUML – Visual Studio Marketplace.
Atom.io was already on my list of tools to say good bye to: though a good project to show the versatility of the Electron Framework, over time – like Google Chrome – it had become a memory and CPU hog and a drag to use and update.
Integrating debuggers and other parts of the development life cycle involved too much fuzz, for which Visual Studio code (also known as vscode) was much easier from the start.
Probably Visual Studio code did not suffer from what the Dutch call Law of the handicap of a head start: it is much more responsive and versatile than Atom.io. Also the plugins – despite having come to the market later – feel way more mature in Visual Studio code than Atom.io.
Finally, the PlantUML support extension for vscode is so much nicer than in Atom.io, it for instance supports live updating and in addition to local rendering, rendering through a PlantUML server (see [WayBack] GitHub – plantuml/plantuml-server: PlantUML Online Server).
Source code is at [WayBack] GitHub – qjebbs/vscode-plantuml: Rich PlantUML support for Visual Studio Code.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, atom editor, Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Power User, Software Development, Text Editors, UML, Visual Studio and tools, vscode Visual Studio Code | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/06/24
Learned a new thing today: you can change the line styles in PlantUML to these:
This in addition to the colour I already knew about. The order of these does not matter:
@startuml
' Make a dashed line, alternative syntax for ..>
(*) -[dashed]-> "Write outline"
' Make line bold and use color name
"Write outline" -[bold,#green]-> "Find example"
' Only change the color with hexadecimal RGB code
"Find example" -[#ff00ff]-> "Write blog"
' Order of line style and color can be reversed
"Write blog" -[#6666ff,dashed]-> "Publish"
' Use dotted line style
"Publish" -[dotted]-> (*)
@enduml
Source: [WayBack] PlantUML Pleasantness: Change Line Style And Color – Messages from mrhaki
–jeroen
Posted in Color (software development), Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Power User, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/06/21
I like PlantUML a lot as it is an easy way to create even simple diagrams using plain text, for instance a simple Sequence Diagram like below.
Sometimes, you want to add comments because the way you build the diagram needs explanation that is not needed in the diagram itself. You can:
[Archive.is] Is it possible to comment out lines of diagram syntax? – PlantUML Q&A:
You can use quote like in the following example
@startuml
' This is a comment on a single line
Bob->Alice : hello
/' You quote by using slash-and-quote
to split your comments on several
lines '/
@enduml
[Archive.is] Sequence Diagram syntax and features
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Power User, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/07
If you get a message like this in Atom when using plantuml-preview:
then you need to change the PlantUML Jar setting from your old version (in my case /usr/local/Cellar/plantuml/1.2017.13/libexec/plantuml.jar:
Then you have to save your .plantuml file so the preview re-renders.
This finds the homebrew installed PlantUML versions:
$ find /usr/local/Cellar/plantuml | grep plantuml.jar
/usr/local/Cellar/plantuml/1.2017.13/libexec/plantuml.jar
/usr/local/Cellar/plantuml/1.2017.14/libexec/plantuml.jar
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2018/12/05
Note that as of somewhere in 2022, GitLab now natively supports PlantUML (even embedded in files like markdown and asciidoc), so here are the updated saved links to the StackOverflow question below: [Wayback/Archive]
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Diagram, PlantUML, Software Development, UML | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 