Are you looking for a diagramming an UML tool for your team or wider group? You might have used PlantUML which doesn’t solve your problem well, and wonder what ZenUML can give you. This post is going to give you some idea.
It’s assumed that you already have some knowledge of text to UML tools, if not, you can read why it’s trending here.
Diagram language
For software developers, the benefit of PlantUML is its text representation of diagrams, so they can create diagrams along with the code to keep them in sync, and the extra benefit of version controlled diagrams. Similar to PlanUML, ZenUML has the same idea of creating diagrams by text, which is a kind of Domain Specific Language.
A simple example of the text representation of diagramBoth PlantUML and ZenUML use textual representation, known as Domain Specific Language(DSL) to render graphical UML diagrams.
The fact that UML models are stored as text simplifies their integration with a variety of tools (like version control systems) that software developers already use in their everyday work.
Let’s have a look at a simple example of the DSL in ZenUML:
| Code Block |
|---|
Controller.getBookById(id) {
BookService.getBy(id)
} |
...
ZenUML is built with the core in web technology, it works purely at client side. As user types text in the editor, diagram can be is rendered in real time as user types text in the browserside by side, without the need of server interaction. This presents a smooth user experience on creating diagrams as rendering is very fast.
In comparison, PlantUML has a varying user experience depending on its third party integrations, and are usually not as fast as ZenUML.
Diagram styling
Typically, PlantUML produces diagram as picture(png, svg). ZenUML takes a different approach: It renders graphical diagram in the form of HTML DOM. The benefits are:
You can apply any styles on it – different colors, borders, fonts and even handwritten styles.
2. You still can produce images from it. This is already supported in the Chrome Extension.
3. It is searchable. Participant names, messages are all text on the page. If you insert the diagram into another document, it is indexable.
Diagram types
Of course, PlantUML has been around for a long time, and ZenUML is new in this domain. Not surprisingly, you’ll find the support of more diagram types in PlantUML, and ZenUML has sequence diagram only at the moment.
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