Listing 1 contains the flowchart with which Figure 1 was created.įigure 1: Mermaid only needs a few instructions to create a simple diagram for moving your home.

Using the Live Editor on the Mermaid website, you can test the Mermaid functions before you install to learn what the description language can do. Mermaid is available as a standalone tool for the command line and as a JavaScript library for website integration. The development is a community effort anchored by the project page on GitHub. The Mermaid project is developed and maintained by Scandinavian Knut Sveidqvist and is licensed under the MIT license. As you'll learn in this article, the local version has some issues that make it hard to depend on for real production work, but you can use the online Mermaid Live Editor at the project website to generate diagrams and explore the Mermaid command syntax. The Mermaid project is still relatively unpolished.

This approach opens the door to automated document generation and website integration. Mermaid follows the minimalist concept of Markdown and AsciiDoc formats. Mermaid focuses on UML sequence diagrams, and it supports different output styles that are reminiscent of manual drawings. These tools generate flow charts and other useful diagrams based on simple text-based commands. Mermaid, which is based on JavaScript, is similar to open source tools such as Graphviz and JS Sequence Diagrams. If you want to simplify your documentation and avoid using complex tools like Visio, Dia, or Inkscape for displaying charts and diagrams, Mermaid might be just right for you.

Mermaid sequence diagram online