mermaid/README.md

mermaid
=======

Generation of diagrams and flowcharts from text in a similar manner as markdown.

Ever wanted to simplify documentation and avoid heavy tools like Visio when explaining your code?

This is why mermaid was born, a simple markdown-like script language for generating charts from text via javascript.

The code below would render the following image

```
graph TD;
    A-->B;
    A-->C;
    B-->D;
    C-->D;
```

would render this lovely chart:

![Example 1](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex1.png)


#Installation

Either use the bower package manager as per below:

```
bower install mermaid --save-dev
```

Or download javascript files:

* [mermaid including dependencies](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/dist/mermaid.full.min.js)

This file bundles mermaid with d3 and dagre-d3.

* [mermaid without dependencies](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/dist/mermaid.slim.min.js)

With this file you will need to include d3 and dagre-d3 yourself.

# Usage

Include mermaid on your web page:

```
<script src="mermaid.full.min.js"></script>
```

Further down on your page mermaid will look for tags with ```class="mermaid"```. From these tags mermaid will try to
read the chart definiton which will be replaced with the svg chart.


A chart defined like this:
```
<div class="mermaid">
    CHART DEFINITION GOES HERE
</div>
```

Would end up like this:
```
<div class="mermaid" id="mermaidChart0">
    <svg>
        Chart ends up here
    </svg>
</div>
```
An id is also added to mermaid tags without id.

## Default style

Set the default styles for the graphics in css:

```
text {
    font-weight: 300;
    font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serf;
    font-size: 14px;
}
.node rect {
    stroke: #999;
    fill: #fff;
    stroke-width: 1.5px;
}
.edgePath path {
    stroke: #333;
    stroke-width: 1.5px;
}
```

# A graph example

```
graph LR;
    A[Hard edge]-->|Link text|B(Round edge);
    B-->C{Decision};
    C-->|One|D[Result one];
    C-->|Two|E[Result two];
```

![Example 2](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex2.png)


#Syntax
## Graph
This statement declares a new graph and the direction of the graph layout.

```
graph TD
```

This declares a graph oriented from top to bottom.

![Example 3](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex3.png)

```
graph LR
```

This declares a graph oriented from left to right.

![Example 4](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex4.png)

## Nodes

### A node (default)
```
id1;
```

![Single node](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex5.png)

Note that the id is what is displayed in the box.

### A node with text
It is also possible to set text in the box that differs from the id. If this is done several times, it is the last text
found for the node that will be used. Also if you define edges for the node later on, you can omit text definitions. The
one previously defined will be used when rendering the box.

```
id1[This is the text in the box];
```

![Text in node](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex6.png)


### A node with round edges
```
id1(This is the text in the box);
```

![Node with round edges](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex7.png)

### A node (rhombus)
```
id1{This is the text in the box};
```

![Decision box](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex8.png)

### Styling a node
It is possible to apply specific styles such as a thicker border or a different background color to a node.

```
graph LR;
    id1(Start)-->id2(Stop);
    style id1 fill:#f9f,stroke:#333,stroke-width:4px;
    style id2 fill:#ccf,stroke:#f66,stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray: 5, 5;
```

![Node with styles](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex9.png)

## Links between nodes

Nodes can be connected with links/edges. It is possible to have different types of links or attach a text string to a link.

### A link with arrow head
```
A-->B;
```

![Link with arrowhead](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex4.png)

### An open link

```
A---B;
```

![Open link](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex10.png)

### Text on links

```
A---|This is the text|B;
```

![Text on links](http://www.sveido.com/mermaid/img/ex11.png)

# Credits
Many thanks to the [d3](http://d3js.org/) and [dagre-d3](https://github.com/cpettitt/dagre-d3) projects for providing the graphical layout and drawing libraries!!!