Show HN: Ilograph – interactive architecture diagrams as code | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Ilograph – interactive architecture diagrams as code

app.ilograph.com

92 pointsVeuxdo20 comments

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Thanks for the heads up, shame I missed that!

It definitely doesn't sound very GDPR compliant. It’s dated before GDPR so clearly needs an update.

Yeah, good point. Thanks for the reminder.

Fixed this, thanks for the heads up!

Really nice idea, and when I worked as an architect I often wished for something like this. :)

Some feedback:

- Only show the top level information for each block by default. So the front page of the example would have the "Lambda" block, but it would be empty until you click on it to drill into it. Otherwise it gets cluttered fast. I've seen some architecture diagrams that attempt to fit every single sub-sub-component into one "master" diagram, and it creates huge information overload.

- (This is more about the example than the UX, I think...) When drilling into it, as opposed to having source code functions or resources, it would be nice to see actual architectural components (like functional units of systems).

I love how it shows dependencies. Great work!

Hey, thanks for this feedback. Does lowering the detail (using the control in the top-right) achieve a result like the one you describe, or would you like to see something even simpler (by default)?

Aha I completely missed that control. That's much better. I think for me it might be nice to have that as the default, because of the whole information overload thing.

Great work!

Awesome project! Perhaps a future version could include Google Cloud style diagrams and icons: https://cloud.google.com/icons/

Thanks! Icon support is something I've been thinking about forever... Now could actually be a good time since the app functionality is settling. Thanks for the feedback.

Really awesome project! The walkthrough was extremely well put together. This should be used for software architecture presentations and webinars - really helps showcase how everything fits together while minimising the overload of information. Well done! For projects, like any documentation, the only problem with anything like this is how much effort does it take for the diagram to stay up-to-date and relevant in a project with ongoing development.

Discussions with comments in the last year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20390560

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19104734

I love it, excellent work!

One thing I noticed is when signing up with github, it requires read/write access to all repos. Does it write anything, or is that just the only access control github provides through the API?

Hi. Yep, it will write your Ilograph file when you save, certainly. It doesn't create other random files or anything like that, though.

Very cool!

A bit disorienting due to information paralysis, but maybe if I'm the person creating it, or have already used to it, it will be ok.

Suggestion: Don't overuse elevation (material design card). Actually, maybe you can remove the shadows and use standard diagram elements that Visio uses, and/or XKCD style.

I think if they add some color coding to the resource groups in the diagram like google cloud style infrastructure diagrams it would make the diagrams much more readable and approachable.

Yeah, you both are right. This is on me... the tool allows you to customize the style (flat, dashed borders, background colors, etc.) but I never got around to using these in this diagram. I'll try to update today :)

I had a good play with this a few months back. Really really impressive tool!

Hi veuxdo, this is a really cool project! Do you have an open source project for the code? Curious what you built this with and whether I can contribute to the code..

https://ilograph.com appears to go nowhere

This is exactly what I'm looking for ... but as an open source tool. I'm currently doing something quite hacky with Hugo, Graphviz and some Python.

I don't begrudge a hosted or commercial product, but does anyone know of related open source projects?

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