w3c / dxwg

Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT)
https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/dcat/
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Editorial issue: change UML diagrams to SVG #1294

Closed jakubklimek closed 3 years ago

jakubklimek commented 3 years ago

The UML diagrams in DCAT on a modern high-res monitor look terrible, because they are low-resolution bitmap graphics in PNG format.

I suggest switching to SVG vector graphics.

kvistgaard commented 3 years ago

Indeed, and overall using SVG is way more in the spirit of DCAT and other RDF-based standards.

On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 at 15:24, Jakub Klímek notifications@github.com wrote:

The UML diagrams in DCAT on a modern high-res monitor look terrible, because they are low-resolution bitmap graphics in PNG format.

I suggest switching to SVG vector graphics.

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riccardoAlbertoni commented 3 years ago

The UML diagrams in DCAT on a modern high-res monitor look terrible, because they are low-resolution bitmap graphics in PNG format.

I suggest switching to SVG vector graphics.

Yes, @jakubklimek, It would be great to have it. Could you suggest a free UML editor saving/exporting in SVG? I haven't come up with anything quick and easy to use so far ...

jakubklimek commented 3 years ago

I use https://www.diagrams.net/ It is not ideal, as it is more of a paint tool that allows you to paint UML Class Diagrams, meaning you create an image, not data representing the data model. But it gets the job done.

See a created example: Czech DCAT-AP

kvistgaard commented 3 years ago

Check out https://www.planttext.com

On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 at 16:19, Jakub Klímek notifications@github.com wrote:

I use https://www.diagrams.net/ It is not ideal, as it is more of a paint tool that allows you to paint UML Class Diagrams, meaning you create an image, not data representing the data model. But it gets the job done.

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agbeltran commented 3 years ago

I think this is a great idea and I had started work on a mermaid file, representing the class diagram in Markdown, which can be converted automatically to SVG.

See my current version in this live editor.

This means we can keep the Markdown file (see it on the left hand side of the live editor) in the folder and generate the figure automatically (we could combine it with Github actions for this to happen when the markdown file is updated).

If this is of interest, I could complete the Markdown.

riccardoAlbertoni commented 3 years ago

If this is of interest, I could complete the Markdown.

I think that would be great!

Just a doubt before proceed. I wonder how configurable is the layout of the classes. We might need to force a specific layout to make the diagram readable. For example, we might want to constraint Catalog on the top left part of the diagram, Resource placed on the top right part of the diagram, etc.

@agbeltran: Do you know if that is possible on "mermaid"?

init-dcat-ap-de commented 3 years ago

@riccardoAlbertoni I am afraid, that is probably not possible. Maybe someone knows a program that could import Mermaid files and allows to edit their layout? The same goes for PlantUML.

I decided to use PlantUML over Mermaid because of the problems with class names: https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/issues/1635

agbeltran commented 3 years ago

Indeed, it is quite limited what can be done in terms of layout althought it looks that there are plans for enabling more configuration options according to the documentation.

Good to see the issue about colons in class names.