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https://d2lang.com/ https://d2lang.com/ is a nicer language than Mermaid with much nicer visual appearance. It would be great if it became more widely supported

https://d2lang.com/ https://d2lang.com/ is a nicer language than Mermaid with much nicer visual appearance. It would be great if it became more widely supported.

lugao 6mo ago
Does it produce real svgs as opposed to foreign object html in svg mess that mermaid compilers produce?
- troyvit 6mo ago
  d2 produces real svgs but I've found them to have a hard time displaying in other svg editors. The d2 folks talk about that somewhere and they have some fixes for it.
growrow 6mo ago
What makes it nicer?
- Myrmornis 6mo ago
  Take a look at https://d2lang.com/examples/dagre/ https://d2lang.com/examples/dagre/ and https://d2lang.com/tour/intro/ https://d2lang.com/tour/intro/ The language is richer and all diagram types are implemented consistently in the same language in a way that can be composed, as opposed to being a collection of unrelated DSLs. The improved visual appearance is clear from inspecting example diagrams, I believe.
erajasekar 6mo ago
I reached the same conclusion after comparing diagram-as-code tools — D2 feels cleaner and more expressive than Mermaid. I’ve been working on an AI diagramming tool built around D2: https://aidiagrammaker.com/ https://aidiagrammaker.com/ You describe a system in plain English, and it generates architecture diagrams, flowcharts, and sequence diagrams in D2. Edits can be made either directly in the D2 code or via a context-aware editor.
neuronexmachina 6mo ago
I agree that it's nicer and more powerful, but it's a little concerning it hasn't had any commits in the past 6 months: https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/commits/master/ https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/commits/master/
- nine_k 6mo ago
  Maybe it doesn't need constant fixing? Are there many issues in the tracker?
- 16bitvoid 6mo ago
  I think the founder/lead developer, Alexander Wang, works at OpenAI now. Plus, according to this comment on an issue, folks in their discord say it's not being actively maintained. https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/issues/2735#issuecomment-4214818821 https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/issues/2735#issuecomment-4...
  - vladsanchez 6mo ago
    Never imagined Scale.ai CEO was D2Lang creator nor that he joined his room-mate at OpenAI (giggle). Thanks for sharing
    - 16bitvoid 6mo ago
      Scale AI is a different Alex. Their first names are spelled slightly different. Alexandr vs Alexander
spacecow 6mo ago
Oh, finally, something that supports actual hierarchical state diagrams (that isn't Graphviz, no offense)... Mermaid's "You cannot define transitions between internal states belonging to different composite states" [1] has driven me up a wall for years. parentA.childA -> parentB.childB: voop parentB.childB -> parentA: vorp shouldn't be that hard! [1] https://mermaid.ai/open-source/syntax/stateDiagram.html#composite-states https://mermaid.ai/open-source/syntax/stateDiagram.html#comp...
- bitbytebane 6mo ago
  [dead]
jauntywundrkind 6mo ago
How good is the LLM at creating d2? What if any skills/material can folks recommend? (Follow-up: D2-mcp has a cheat sheet, https://github.com/h0rv/d2-mcp/blob/main/d2/CHEATSHEET.md https://github.com/h0rv/d2-mcp/blob/main/d2/CHEATSHEET.md) And, does GitHub support it? (Follow up: alas not! Sadness. Please add!)
- elcritch 6mo ago
  For me that's the deal breaker :/
wps 6mo ago
Has anyone here used https://pikchr.org/ https://pikchr.org/ from the creator of SQLite?
pastelsky 6mo ago
Thanks for sharing! I haven’t looked into that before but looks neat.

https://d2lang.com/ https://d2lang.com/ is a nicer language than Mermaid with much nicer visual appearance. It would be great if it became more widely supported.

lugao 6mo ago

Does it produce real svgs as opposed to foreign object html in svg mess that mermaid compilers produce?

troyvit 6mo ago
d2 produces real svgs but I've found them to have a hard time displaying in other svg editors. The d2 folks talk about that somewhere and they have some fixes for it.

growrow 6mo ago

What makes it nicer?

Myrmornis 6mo ago
Take a look at https://d2lang.com/examples/dagre/ https://d2lang.com/examples/dagre/ and https://d2lang.com/tour/intro/ https://d2lang.com/tour/intro/ The language is richer and all diagram types are implemented consistently in the same language in a way that can be composed, as opposed to being a collection of unrelated DSLs. The improved visual appearance is clear from inspecting example diagrams, I believe.

erajasekar 6mo ago

I reached the same conclusion after comparing diagram-as-code tools — D2 feels cleaner and more expressive than Mermaid. I’ve been working on an AI diagramming tool built around D2: https://aidiagrammaker.com/ https://aidiagrammaker.com/ You describe a system in plain English, and it generates architecture diagrams, flowcharts, and sequence diagrams in D2. Edits can be made either directly in the D2 code or via a context-aware editor.

neuronexmachina 6mo ago

I agree that it's nicer and more powerful, but it's a little concerning it hasn't had any commits in the past 6 months: https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/commits/master/ https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/commits/master/

nine_k 6mo ago
Maybe it doesn't need constant fixing? Are there many issues in the tracker?
16bitvoid 6mo ago
I think the founder/lead developer, Alexander Wang, works at OpenAI now. Plus, according to this comment on an issue, folks in their discord say it's not being actively maintained. https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/issues/2735#issuecomment-4214818821 https://github.com/terrastruct/d2/issues/2735#issuecomment-4...
- vladsanchez 6mo ago
  Never imagined Scale.ai CEO was D2Lang creator nor that he joined his room-mate at OpenAI (giggle). Thanks for sharing
  - 16bitvoid 6mo ago
    Scale AI is a different Alex. Their first names are spelled slightly different. Alexandr vs Alexander

spacecow 6mo ago

Oh, finally, something that supports actual hierarchical state diagrams (that isn't Graphviz, no offense)... Mermaid's "You cannot define transitions between internal states belonging to different composite states" [1] has driven me up a wall for years. parentA.childA -> parentB.childB: voop parentB.childB -> parentA: vorp shouldn't be that hard! [1] https://mermaid.ai/open-source/syntax/stateDiagram.html#composite-states https://mermaid.ai/open-source/syntax/stateDiagram.html#comp...

bitbytebane 6mo ago
[dead]

jauntywundrkind 6mo ago

How good is the LLM at creating d2? What if any skills/material can folks recommend? (Follow-up: D2-mcp has a cheat sheet, https://github.com/h0rv/d2-mcp/blob/main/d2/CHEATSHEET.md https://github.com/h0rv/d2-mcp/blob/main/d2/CHEATSHEET.md) And, does GitHub support it? (Follow up: alas not! Sadness. Please add!)

elcritch 6mo ago
For me that's the deal breaker :/

wps 6mo ago

Has anyone here used https://pikchr.org/ https://pikchr.org/ from the creator of SQLite?

pastelsky 6mo ago

Thanks for sharing! I haven’t looked into that before but looks neat.