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Comment by mcqueenjordan | Hacker News Reader

Anyone familiar with PlantUML[1]? That's been my goto for declarative text-based diagramming. I've always thought "there really could be a better tool," but I've never found anything better than PlantUML.

I don't think YUML is going to be my answer, though -- it's paid and doesn't seem to be a local tool, but rather a SaaS model.

This product feels like it should be a local compile-into-image workflow. But that's probably my bias for text-based declarative formats coming through. :)

[1] http://plantuml.com/

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Any other ideas on what "could be the better tool"? I haven't really used plantuml or one of the couple of others like memraid or flowchart other than playing around with them, but my dream tool in that arena is something that has the same accessibility (`->` and other minimal notation) but to drive more of the note taking process like I have on paper. I think it would be great to be able to right justify or write on both sides of the same line or otherwise position text or wrap it in a box like can be easily done in a tool like OneNote(or my notebook) but driven entirely by the keyboard. If there were something like markdown but for text positioning rather than styling.

It seems to me that a keyboard driven OneNote would be fantastic. I already do a lot of writing in my vim/markdown setup because folding is so useful. I just want more mindmap style control, or the ability to define my own notations. On paper I often comment or converse with ideas on the right third of the page, and I should be able to do that with a `<` denotation just like markdown does blockquote with `>`.

I haven't personally used it so far, but check out mermaid[1] which I bookmarked from a HN[2] discussion

[1] https://mermaidjs.github.io/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889181

graphical software (even Powerpoint) still works best IMHO

I found mermaidjs to be interesting in cases where you want to put down some diagrams quickly. However the renders/SVG export are really wonky at the moment.

PlantUML is great! Key benefits you get from a good text-based diagramming tool: - easy iteration (for example: search and replace with a text editor to rename things) - readable diffs in your version control system

In the rare case that someone insists on diagrams, I usually go for umlet. It's quirky but it gets the job done.

Frankly, I think UML is a waste of time. Anything that fits in a diagram, is too trivial to document. It's the stuff that doesn't fit that matters more. And attempting to document a very complex system with UML is both pointless and painful.

Most diagrams I've seen just state the bleeding obvious. There's a thingy; it uses another thingy and extends that other thingy over there. Best case it's not a complete over simplification; worst case it tells less than half the story or it is hopelessly out of date because diagrams rot even faster than code.

IMHO the best diagrams are those on whiteboard that you wipe out after the meeting. Don't bother taking photos, nobody ever looks at those.

Honestly you're right. I'm not inclined to give the time of day to yet another SaaS project that should have been a command-line tool

Me either, I mean I pay for Netflix and Intellij out of my own pocket (even though I use the latter at work) but when it comes to SaaS I just multiply the monthly price by 12 and think "hah, no thanks".

I've no issues with paying for a SaaS but it has to provide value and this for me doesn't.

I keep coming back to it too. I would love for some more control on layout but it works for simpler diagrams

Layouting in plantuml is tricky, but I learned some tricks the hard way, which make larger diagrams more tenable. One core trick is:

  upper/left arrow lower/right

So e.g. you write:

  upperBlock <-- lowerBlock

instead of:

  lowerBlock --> upperBlock

This alone drasticly cuts on the amount of hidden arrows with forced directions you need to use in larger diagrams.

That said, plantuml could use a more explicit way of providing layout hints. E.g. an extra declaration that some objects form a grid. Something like:

  grid
    Comp1 Comp2 Comp3
          Comp4
    Comp5       Comp6
  endgrid

yUML creator here.

Think I know what you're saying. That said, there are many people using a command line wrapper to generate yUML diagrams as part of an automated workflow.

The paid features are more for people who want better management of diagrams.

Ya but I have to leak you my diagrams. Websequencediagram already does this. Plantuml allows a local renderer.

Thank you for this awesome tool! I use YUML all the time to embed diagrams in to markdown documents on GitHub. I use PlantUML sometimes too, but I love that YUML has no compilation step and the "source"of the diagram is in the link and legible to humans.

I wish I could use YUML to make flow charts!

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, we sometimes create flowcharts ourselves so would be a nice addition.

Do you have any idea on how to use PlantUML with LaTeX files? I've only found some workaround scripts that make it pretty ugly to begin with. I'm using Overleaf so I doubt it'll add the functionality, but it'd be neat.

No idea about raw LaTeX, but with Org you can just include it as a source block, and Babel will automatically compile it for you when you do a LaTeX export.

I'm no expert, but are you referring to this? https://orgmode.org/manual/Quoting-LaTeX-code.html

I prefer this: https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/

This isn't something I spend a lot of time on. I settled on Dia long ago and it works fine for my purposes.

I also like Plantuml, but it does not do that good a job with statecharts.

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