How to use PlantUML in VSCode
PlantUML is an open-source tool that facilitates the creation of UML diagrams, which stands for Unified Modeling Language. This standardized modeling language is widely used in software engineering to visualize, construct, and document the artifacts of software systems.
With PlantUML, users can create UML diagrams using a simple and intuitive syntax that can be written in a plain text editor. Once the text is processed, the tool automatically generates the diagrams, which can be exported in various formats, such as PNG, SVG, PDF, and more.
Using PlantUML, we can transform code into beautiful architecture diagrams, achieving the concept of “diagram as code.” In this article, I will walk you through the steps to use PlantUML in VSCode.
Add PlantUML extension to VSCode
Go to VSCode -> Extensions and download the PlantUML plugin.
Install Java
PlantUML has a dependency in Java, so we need to install Java on our machine.
In the following steps, I will demonstrate how to use Homebrew to install the latest Java on macOS.
- Install and upgrade Homebrew
- Use the following command to find all available Java related formulae
brew search java