Diagram.codes

I love that you can write relatively simple declarative markup which is automatically turned into a visual diagram. I would use this for prototyping and private notes, but probably not for any kind of presentation or UI, as the output is still crude.<p>Your value proposition is that the user doesn&#x27;t have to think about positioning and other stuff. This is a great optimization for <i>certain</i> use-cases, but it will definitely diminish your addressable market. Many diagramming use-cases need the additional customization that positioning provides.<p>One might think there&#x27;s an algorithm that can produce perfectly optimal layout for any declaration (input text). I believe it will be difficult to find this algorithm, since |ideal_layout - computed_layout| could be different for every use case even if the declaration is a constant.<p>There are a couple ways to solve this problem. The layout output from your algorithm should instead be an ansatz. You present the &quot;suggested&quot; layout for a given declaration, then let the user fine-tine the positioning if they need to for their use-case.<p>Another way to solve the problem would be to allow the user to specify positional weights in the declaration which your layout generator uses as additional input to decide where to place nodes.

How does this compare to similar products in this space?<p>I&#x27;m thinking of diagramming tools that are based on text, like Graphviz, Mermaid, PlantUML, and Webgraphviz.

Hi, I&#x27;m the creator of the tool, thanks a lot for the feedback, for those interested in getting updates you can follow <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DiagramCodes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;DiagramCodes</a>, thanks.

Am i right in thinking this thing is NOT open source?<p>With SO many great open source tools that do this why would i choose a proprietary one that may go away at any point?

How does this compare with <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mermaid-js&#x2F;mermaid" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mermaid-js&#x2F;mermaid</a>

This is massively appealing to me if it can be made to accommodate a little bit of color and visual design. Sankeymatic is a similar tool that seems to have gotten this right.<p>As a visual learner who loves to diagram things, I&#x27;ve spent what seems like years of my life being disappointed by visio, draw.io, powerpoint, and the like. Honestly, for a straightforward, clean diagram, my favorite is still Google Draw, mostly because it handles connectors incredibly well.

There are a lot of DSL-driven diagramming tools out there, but most produce functional diagrams rather than visually appealing ones. Whilst these are fine for many use cases, there are plenty of others where the look is too dated, and something more modern is needed.<p>I&#x27;d love to see a DSL-driven tool emerge that has a real focus on design and the visual quality of its output, producing something along the lines of Whimsical[0] for example.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;whimsical.com&#x2F;P53PjXCBWEi2fdMjP2Hti" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;whimsical.com&#x2F;P53PjXCBWEi2fdMjP2Hti</a>

For sequence diagrams, I&#x27;ve used this a bit:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bramp.github.io&#x2F;js-sequence-diagrams&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bramp.github.io&#x2F;js-sequence-diagrams&#x2F;</a><p>The nice thing is you can add the JavaScript as a renderer on your page and have svg sequence diagrams rather easily.

I love it. Especially since the dsl is so readable. It’s like like markdown or orgmode or latex. The ease of authoring is paramount for me; being able to produce beautiful rendering is a huge bonus in terms of delivery and being able to get a different perspective on the content I’m reviewing. Well done!

I also like draw.io.<p>Yes, it&#x27;s not text based, but it has such a cool hack: it saves the xml reprensentation of the diagram inside the png. So you can publish it anywhere as a regular png, and still edit it !

I&#x27;d love to see a diagram type that produces Git commit graphs (either top-to-bottom or left-to-right).

I recommend taking a look at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequencediagram.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequencediagram.org&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;ve been using it in various projects, since it only requires a small text file and only a web browser to view those diagrams.<p>Would be awesome if this diagrams could make it into Markdown.

I personally have used Typora(mermaid) to draw diagrams for my research. Is it far different from Typora??

Is it a live editor for PlantUML? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;plantuml.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;plantuml.com</a> The language and output looks similar.

Does anyone have a good DSL tool for diagrams showing services exposing ports and connecting to other services and ports? Maybe even showing hosts, docker containers, networks and firewalls?<p>This is something that I tend to draw a lot at work, but it&#x27;s always ad hoc and doesn&#x27;t follow any formal specification. I tried some tools but keep coming back to doing it my way in ASCII with asciiflow.com or Google Docs drawings.

Seems like it could be an improvement on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;swimlanes.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;swimlanes.io&#x2F;</a> (the fact that you can choose the type of diagram).

Seems like a trivial preprocessor of Graphviz&#x27;s DOT syntax.

code2flow already does that, albeit for flowcharts only. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;code2flow.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;code2flow.com&#x2F;</a>

I really like this. It provides value as it is. If I were to build this, I’d focus on marketing and not try to monetize or have big expectations for 3+ years.

This is great! If this could somehow allow me to create UML diagrams I can see this becoming a leading tool.

So it’s websequencediagrams.org with more options.<p>Alright, I’ll try it. But I’ll echo that others have said, I’d like to see it open source so I could take my designs to another site if this one goes away.<p>Also, the people comparing to draw.io, plantUML, and other actual programs I don’t think get the lightweight fast sketch idea here.

draw.io