Example project showing how to use PlantUML and embed UML diagrams into a GitHub markdown
Often the need arises how to create and share UML diagrams for architecture documentation without pain-in-the-**** tools like MS Visio.
After some research, I found this great post about PlantUML. There are simply 2 components you need:
- A PlantUML editor - simply use http://www.plantuml.com/plantuml/uml/ (or host your own on-premise with the plantUML Docker image)
- Integrate PlantUML render engine with GitHub
README.mdmarkdown
Visit the online editor http://www.plantuml.com/plantuml/uml/ and write your UML diagram with code & use a cheat sheet like this: https://ogom.github.io/draw_uml/plantuml/
This project contains an example example-uml.iuml:
@startuml
actor client
node app
node car
node tshirt
car -> app
app -> client
client -> tshirt
@enduml
There's also an IntelliJ plugin for PlantUML.
This part is simple, yet effective :) Simply use the PlantUML proxy http://www.plantuml.com/plantuml/proxy to render your *.iuml files and embed them like images:
Use the RAW version of your *.iuml files like that: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonashackt/plantuml-markdown/master/example-uml.iuml and prefix it with src=.
Also you should use the cache=no option so that GitHub always renders the currently committed version of your PlantUML *.iuml files.
That's all - simply see the diagram live: