
Show HN: VNote 2.0 – PlantUML editing via Preview Tunnel - tamlok
https://github.com/tamlok/vnote/releases/tag/v2.0
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tvmalsv
This looks very interesting, how did I not know about it already? I was
searching for what was available in the uml/diagram space (such as PlantUML,
nomnoml, Mermaid, etc.) just last week. Obviously, VNote isn't just about
diagrams, but the timing of this Show HN was interesting to me.

Any other suggestions for diagram generators that parse a text DSL and
generate good looking charts & diagrams?

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tamlok
VNote is a Markdown note-taking app. Markdown is excellent to hold script such
as PlantUML, mermaid, and so on. So it is possible to support DSL, too.

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tvmalsv
Yes, and I really like the idea of embedding the text definitions of diagrams
in my markdown files, _and_ being able to view it and export to html/pdf. Very
nice.

I'm somewhat familiar with PlantUML, BlockDiag, Flowchart.js and a couple
others, but am simply wondering if there are any really outstanding ones out
there that I simply don't know about. For example, maybe one that's much more
aesthetically pleasing, or maybe one that built-in support for the entire AWS
ecosystem.

I recently saw a nice AWS diagrammer, but it's drag & drop, I don't think it
has a way to build a diagram from a text description.

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baronseng
I just discover another way too. Visual studio code plus markdown preview
enhanced. With vim mode you got pretty much the same thing.

For the developers among us that is just one plugin away.

[https://shd101wyy.github.io/markdown-preview-
enhanced/#/](https://shd101wyy.github.io/markdown-preview-enhanced/#/)

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tamlok
This plugin just shows you the graph, right? VNote can scroll the
corresponding element into view and highlight it, which is very helpful when
the class diagram is really large on a small screen.

By the way, when you double click an element in the preview graph, VNote could
highlight the originating definition code in the editor.

The Live Preview Tunnel, I think, is what makes VNote different from other
editors. :)

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WhatIsDukkha
This looks like a pretty serious piece of software, very nicely done.

I don't see anything that would pry me away from evil/orgmode/emacs but very
compelling if you aren't using that combination yet.

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tamlok
Give it a try! :)

VNote supports Vim mode in the bone (Ctrl+J/K everywhere to navigate), Captain
Mode (from the leader key of Vim), Navigation Mode (each widget shows two
chars to select to focus), Universal Entry (just like CtrlP in Vim to search
and jump), and so on.

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kbumsik
That's great piece of software! I heavily use PlantUML but never found this
kinds of nice editor before!

As a Qt newbie, I'm curious the reason why you choose Qt Widgets instead of
QML. Maybe because it is hard to make it desktop-feel app using QML?

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tamlok
When I started VNote two years ago, I was just a traditional C++ player. So Qt
Widgets is the choice. I think it can give me the most freedom and power.

When VNote did not support PlantUML, I used VS Code and plugin to edit and
preview PlantUML. It is annoying that I need to scroll to the right element
every time I update a line. Why not just hit the element corresponding to
current line? So VNote provides this now.

