FHIR Chat · PlantUML integration documentation

Stream: IG creation

Topic: PlantUML integration documentation

Max Masnick (Sep 22 2021 at 13:55):

Is there documentation for the PlantUML integration with the IG Publisher? I didn't see anything at https://confluence.hl7.org/display/FHIR/IG+Publisher+Documentation or elsewhere on Confluence.

I'm looking for a resource that describes how to get PlantUML to run locally (I believe you need to install graphviz...not sure if there are other dependencies), where to put the UML files, etc.

If this doesn't exist I can take a pass at writing it...just want to make sure I'm not duplicating effort first.

Josh Mandel (Sep 22 2021 at 13:58):

This came up yesterday in an out-of-band discussion with @Carl Anderson and @Eric Haas -- we didn't find anything on confluence.

Carl Anderson (Sep 22 2021 at 13:59):

I'm interested in helping with this effort, too

Gino Canessa (Sep 22 2021 at 14:00):

Hi Max, I just ran through a test (yesterday), this worked locally for a FSH-based IG (subscriptions backport):

~~Install PlantUML: gem install jekyll-plantuml (after Jekyll is already installed)~~
Create the <root>/input/images-source directory
Add a new file: <root>/input/images-source/diagram.plantuml
In a markdown file (in /input/pages), insert the result file: {%include diagram.svg%}

After running _genonce.bat everything looks right, except for an extra line of XML that I need to track down.

Josh Mandel (Sep 22 2021 at 14:06):

Hmm, does this work in the auto build environment? And if not... (how) are IGs using it in real life? I ask because our docker config doesn't appear to install jekyll-plantuml, but maybe it's pulled in from elsewhere.

Max Masnick (Sep 22 2021 at 14:09):

When I set this up in docker, I just had to apt-get install graphviz and it worked. I assume I did some homebrew thing to get graphviz on my local system. No idea how to do this on Windows

Gino Canessa (Sep 22 2021 at 14:10):

No idea - didn't get that far =). Unfortunately, I don't remember which IGs I looked at to figure out the steps to see if they have CI builds.

Max Masnick (Sep 22 2021 at 14:11):

@Gino Canessa what happens if you don't install jekyll-plantuml?

Josh Mandel (Sep 22 2021 at 14:11):

Cool Max -- @Jean Duteau gave us graphviz in the auto-build env back in Feb, so that must be why :-)

Gino Canessa (Sep 22 2021 at 14:12):

I was testing on Windows, so that process worked there.
I didn't actually test without installing it, one sec.

Max Masnick (Sep 22 2021 at 14:14):

I don't think the Jekyll plugin is actually necessary for the integration I was thinking of -- the IG Publisher handles the conversion of .plantuml to .svg, and all Jekyll does is include the .svg with its generic support for including files in other files.

Gino Canessa (Sep 22 2021 at 14:17):

Yep - it actually isn't necessary. Still has the extra XML literal above the SVG though (<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8” standalone=”no”?>).
This is on windows without graphviz.

(edit: as a note, I initially installed it due to following steps I found somewhere... would have to go back and try to figure out where)