Create plantUML with emacs using plantuml-mode

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Autumn leaves on wood table

Abstract

Hello everyone it’s me candle.
In this time, we will introduce plantuml-mode of emacs supporting plantUML.
plantuml-mode has three functions.

1. Syntax highlight
2. Autocomplete
3. Display UML preview

There are plenty of settings, so let’s do it patiently.

Precondition

You had plantuml command
I installed plantuml with brew. but it is ok you prepare jar file.

If you don’t have it yet, please refer to here.
Build PlantUML environment on Mac using brew

Install plantuml-mode

The latest version of plant-mode is not yet registered in el-get packages, so we will get it from github directly.

For Mepla user, please see the official site and install it.
https://github.com/skuro/plantuml-mode

For el-get user, open the ~/.emacs.d/init.el

emacs ~/.emacs.d/init.el

Write this code.

(el-get-bundle plantuml-mode
  :type github
  :name plantuml-mode
  :pkgname "skuro/plantuml-mode"
  :branch "master")

Then restart emacs and install the plantum-mode.

Check installation either success or fail.
Run this command on emacs.

M-x plantuml-mode

If command exsist, installation is ok.

Confirm jar file path of plantuml which installed by brew

If you had installed plantuml command by “brew”, you need a bit preparation.
Since plantuml-mode tries to execute a jar file, alias plantuml command can not be used.

You’ll confirm plantuml.jar file path.

First go to the /usr/local/bin

cd /usr/local/bin

And show plantuml alias file with this command.

cat ./plantuml

The path of the jar file is displayed.

This is the path in my case.

Let’s keep to remember this.

Setting for plantuml-mode

では設定をやっていきます。
Open ~/.emacs.d/init.el and write the below code.
You specify the absolute path of plantuml.jar to plantuml-jar-path.

;; Open the .pu extension file with plantuml-mode
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\.pu$" . plantuml-mode))
;; Write your absolute plantuml.jar path 
(setq plantuml-jar-path "Here your plant.jar file path")
;; If you want to pass java options, write here.
(setq plantuml-java-options "")
;; Comment in here if you want to preview plantuml as svg, png
;; Display ASCII art by default
;;(setq plantuml-output-type "svg")
;; chart is utf-8
(setq plantuml-options "-charset UTF-8")

Setting is over.

Let’s use it.

Create a folder and create a file.

mkdir test
touch test/new.pu
emacs test/new.pu

Write this.

@startuml

developer -> emacs: "Draw me a diagram"
emacs -> developer: "Here you are, sir"
developer -> world: "Woooooohooooo"

@enduml

Type C-c C-c
A preview of plantuml is displayed at ASCII Art.

You can also open a preview with the below key bindings.

The basic usage is over.

Save png image in plantuml-mode

Although the preview can be displayed from the .pu file in the above method, it can not be saved with png.
When I saw the issue of github, developers are efforting to make it possible to save the image, so the next sentence may be unnecessary soon.

Edit ~/.emacs.d/init.el so that png can be saved.
I refer code from this site, I made it a little customise.

(ja lang)
https://abicky.net/2012/10/16/093737/

Open ~/.emacs.d/init.el and write this.

;; Execute plantuml-save-png function with C-c C-s at plantuml-mode
(add-hook 'plantuml-mode-hook
  (lambda () (local-set-key (kbd "C-c C-s") 'plantuml-save-png)))

;; If you want to save png file when saving .pu file, comment in here
;; (add-hook 'plantuml-mode-hook
;;    (lambda () (add-hook 'after-save-hook 'plantuml-save-png)))

;; Function to save plantuml as png
(defun plantuml-save-png ()
  (interactive)
  (when (buffer-modified-p)
    (map-y-or-n-p "Save this buffer before executing PlantUML?"
      'save-buffer (list (current-buffer))))
  (let ((code (buffer-string))
         out-file
         cmd)
    (when (string-match "^\\s-*@startuml\\s-+\\(\\S-+\\)\\s*$" code)
      (setq out-file (match-string 1 code)))
    (setq cmd (concat
                "java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar " plantuml-java-options " "
                (shell-quote-argument plantuml-jar-path) " "
                (and out-file (concat "-t" (file-name-extension out-file))) " "
                plantuml-options " "
                (buffer-file-name)))
    (message cmd)
    (call-process-shell-command cmd nil 0)))

Save it.
Let’s reopen the new.pu and execute C-c C-s

The new.png is created in the same place, let’s open it.

It seems good!

conclusion

Plantuml is now available in emacs.