FC4

Features of FC4

FC4 has three main features:

Formatting

When used to create or edit a diagram, Structurizr Express (re)generates the diagram source YAML in such a way that the YAML becomes noisy and the sorting can change unpredictably. This makes the source harder to work with in a text editor and impossible to usefully diff from revision to revision — and without useful diffing it’s very difficult to do effective peer review. And peer review is a crucial element of the Docs as Code philosophy.

So this feature rewrites diagram YAML files:

• Removes properties with empty/blank values
• Removes extraneous quotes around values that are obviously strings
• Sorts properties and elements using a known and stable sort order

…thereby facilitating the authoring, editing, and reviewing of revisions to the diagrams.

Snapping

Improves the layout of Structurizr Express diagrams:

• “Snaps” the elements and vertices to a virtual grid
  • i.e. rounds their coordinates
• Adjusts element coordinates if necessary so as to create top and left margins in the diagram
  • i.e. ensures that all elements are at least 50px away from the top/left edges of the canvas
• Offsets the positions of People elements so they’ll align properly with other kinds of elements (working around a rendering quirk of Structurizr Express)

Rendering

Given Structurizr Express diagram YAML files, creates image files that contain the visualization of the diagram.

• The resulting image files are created in the same directory as the YAML file, with the same base filename and the appropriate extensions
  • E.G. docs/spline_reticulator_01_context.yaml may yield docs/spline_reticulator_01_context.png and/or docs/spline_reticulator_01_context.svg
  • The default output format is PNG but users may specify which format(s) should be rendered
• If an image file already exists it will be overwritten

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