Mermaid : Diagram Practice (Flowchart Essentials)

[kimpro82]

1. Overview

• Objective: Practice the core features of Mermaid flowchart to improve documentation skills, focusing on node text styling, space optimization (hybrid horizontal/vertical layouts), and comparing swimlanes with traditional flowcharts.
• Scope of Practice:
  1. Customizing node font size, color, and classDef styles.
  2. Controlling layouts via subgraph direction (direction) for hybrid horizontal and vertical arrangements.
  3. Comparing the structural characteristics and use cases of system area separation (swimlanes) versus traditional flowcharts.

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2. Detailed Requirements

2.1. [Topic 1] Chart Node Text Size and Color Customization

• Goal: Ensure readability by controlling font size, color, and weight for critical decision-making or exception-handling nodes.
• Practice Content:
  • Inline HTML tags (<span style='...'>) for individual node text styling.
  • classDef for defining and applying reusable common styles.

2.2. [Topic 2] Space Optimization via Hybrid Horizontal/Vertical Flowchart

• Goal: Master layout control to reduce wasted screen space by keeping the overall flow horizontal (LR) while branching complex conditional areas vertically (TB).
• Practice Content:
  • Configuring hybrid layouts using subgraph-specific direction TB and direction LR declarations.

2.3. [Topic 3] Structural Comparison: Swimlanes vs. Traditional Flowcharts

• Goal: Directly compare the readability and layout stability of swimlane structures—which clearly divide system accountability by module—against standard single flowcharts to determine optimal application scenarios.
• Practice Content:
  • Evaluating readability and layout retention differences between the Single Flowchart + Subgraph approach and the Swimlane structure.

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3. Definition of Done

• Complete practical testing of core syntax (inline styles, direction control, zone separation) for each topic within an actual Markdown document.
• Understand the differences between swimlane structures and traditional flowcharts to establish clear selection criteria based on documentation context.