Mind-Maps with PlantUML

When you work with PlantUML, you propably already noticed that it has some surprises deep down in its code. Some are experimental and some are quite useful.

Whenever I tried to draw Mind-Maps in the past, I noticed that the most important feature of a Mind-Map tool is that it is easy to use. It should start quickly and you should be able to dump your brain easily vida the keyboard.

Since I seldomly use Mind-Maps, the brain dump part is the hardest - I always forget which tool I used last and the keyboard shortcuts to use.

Now I discovered that PlantUML is also capable of drawing Mind-Maps. Put a List between @startmindmap and @endmindmap tags and it will be rendered as Mind-Map:

Source Code of a Mind-Map

@startmindmap

+ **myThoughts**
++ Thought 1
'tag::details[]
+++_ Thought 1.1
+++_ Thought 1.2
'end::details[]
++ Thought 2
++ Thought 3

'tag::left[]
-- Thought A
-- Thought B
-- Thought C
'end::left[]

@endmindmap

+-bullets will be rendered as thoughts to the right, --bullets to the left, add an underscore _ to omit the box. Take care that there is only one root-element, because PlantUML doesn’t know how to handle two roots (me either).

Figure 1. Rendered Mind-Map

These Mind-Maps quickly grow. This results in boxes getting smaller and smaller. But as you can already see from the source above, there is a solution. Tag some detail levels or parts of your Mind-Map and instruct Asciidoctor to render only the main part.

Only the right part of my map

[plantuml,mindmap2,svg]
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include::demo.puml[tags=!left]
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2nd Level omitted

[plantuml,mindmap3,svg]
----
include::demo.puml[tags=!details]
----