This post is all about why I felt PlantUML is awesome. [PlantUML](https://github.com/plantuml/plantuml) is an open-source tool allowing users to create UML diagrams from a plain text language. You can just write few lines of code to draw your UML diagram. UML diagrams are very important in communicating design implementation, doing these digrams in draw.io or something drawing tool is a time taking task. Playing with touchpad/mouse for long time is less effective. I have used similar tools in past, like [mermaid](https://github.com/knsv/mermaid) and [graphviz](https://graphviz.org/). Following are the things that made PlantUML different * Readability * Maintainable * Flexible * Powerful * Customable Once the UML is designed with plantUML the end result can be extracted out into PNG or SVG. There are plugins that can be easily intergated into IDE's, such as [PlantUML for VS Code](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jebbs.plantuml) and [PlantUML for IntelliJ](https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/7017-plantuml-integration). Also available for [Confluence](https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence)(document manager of Atlassian suite) where the history of the change in design implementation can be tracked easily [PlantUML for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/41025/plantuml-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview) *PS: PlantUML is written is java with graphviz underhood :)* PlantUML is a component that allows to quickly write : 1. Sequence diagram 2. Usecase diagram * Class diagram * Activity diagram (here is the legacy syntax) * Component diagram * State diagram * Object diagram * Deployment diagram `beta` * Timing diagram `beta` You can find the details [documentation](http://plantuml.com/) of how and what is plantUML. Here I took a random sequence diagram from internet and tried to replicate the same in PlantUML with few tweeks, the end result was wow! ## Sample Sequence diagram ![sample sequnce](https://i.postimg.cc/PqvRnKNP/sequence-example-facebook-authentication.png) ## Sequence diagram with PlantUML ![PlantUML sequnce](https://i.postimg.cc/4NtvGM1C/facebook.png) It's not just a replica, but a much better one. Here the code that did the `magic` for us. ``` @startuml header Facebook Authentication System title Facebook Authentication System footer Page no %page% of %lastpage% actor user #3c5a99 participant WebBrowser as "Web Browser" box "Facebook server" participant App as "Application" participant AuthZ as "Authorization System" database FCS as "Facebook Content System" end box == Basic flow == activate user user -> WebBrowser : get FB resource activate WebBrowser WebBrowser -> App : request FB access WebBrowser <-- App : <> WebBrowser -[#red]> AuthZ : authorize WebBrowser <-- AuthZ : permission form user <-- WebBrowser : permission form deactivate WebBrowser user -> WebBrowser : user permission activate WebBrowser WebBrowser -> AuthZ : process permission ... 5 minutes alter ... WebBrowser <-- AuthZ : <> == Authorization == alt permission granted activate App group WebBrowser -> App : FB authorization code activate AuthZ App -> AuthZ : FB authorization code App <-- AuthZ : FB authorization code deactivate AuthZ activate FCS App -> FCS : access FB user protected resource App <-- FCS : user protected resource note left FCS: Check with content system deactivate FCS end deactivate App WebBrowser <-- App : user protected resource deactivate WebBrowser user <-- WebBrowser : user protected resource else permission not granted activate WebBrowser activate App WebBrowser -> App : no authorization WebBrowser <-- App : FB resource not available deactivate App deactivate WebBrowser user <-- WebBrowser : FB resource not available end deactivate WebBrowser deactivate user @enduml ``` Thanks for reading!!! :)

imshakthi

PlantUML is awesome

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