Smetana doesn't allow [hide] in connections?

0 votes
asked Dec 19, 2020 in Bug by costateixeira (500 points)
commented Dec 19, 2020 by Martin
It is also not respecting the "skinparam linetype polyline".
commented Dec 19, 2020 by albert (3,520 points)
Looks like the problamatic line is:

!pragma graphviz_dot jdot

when commenting this line it does work. I think that the jdot program does not know how to handle hidden lines.

What is jdot?

Where does jdot come from?

Why no just use the Graphviz dot program?
commented Dec 19, 2020 by costateixeira (500 points)
the jdot is the internal implementation of graphviz.

https://plantuml.com/smetana02

I'm using PlantUML in a CI Build, and for licensing  and platform reasons I cannot use graphviz, so I am starting to check this alternative.
commented Dec 19, 2020 by albert (3,520 points)
I didn't know about this possibility, very interesting for CI usage. Most likely the hidden possibility is still missing.

Note in the linked page it says:

As you can see, some feature are not implemented yet (drawing of arrow heads, for example).

though looking at the image the arrow heads are present, so probably this part of the documentation is lagging a bit as well.
commented Dec 19, 2020 by costateixeira (500 points)
Yes, this is why I made this request - not sure if I should call it bug or missing feature..
commented Dec 19, 2020 by The-Lu (63,920 points)

Hello Albert,

What is jdot?
Where does jdot come from?

FYI, here are some informations about jdot or Smetana (internal Java port of GraphViz/Dot):

Why no just use the Graphviz dot program?

In fact the main goal, is for some infrastructure where Graphviz is missing or just to avoid to install Graphviz (and avoid also dependences with Graphviz).

If that can help,
Regards,
Th.

1 Answer

+1 vote
answered Dec 20, 2020 by plantuml (294,960 points)
selected Dec 20, 2020 by costateixeira
 
Best answer

The built-in graphviz implementation does not seem to allow hidden connections in some diagrams. Is this intended or still missing?

It's indeed a bug that has just been fixed in last beta http://beta.plantuml.net/plantuml.jar

Tell us if it's not working for you and please go on in publish issue report about this built-in graphviz implementation.

the jdot is the internal implementation of graphviz.


Note that the directive has been renamed to !pragma graphviz_dot smetana
We do not use "jdot" name anymore now because there are some others projects using this code name and this is putting some more confusion to something already complex :-)

In fact the main goal, is for some infrastructure where Graphviz is missing or just to avoid to install Graphviz (and avoid also dependences with Graphviz).

Note that there are another long term goal we did not mention yet: once smetana will be completely working (don't expect that before 3 to 6 years!), our intention is to refactor it and to directly call internal GraphViz methods (so, in Java, in that long term future) that will allow us to overcome some limitations we have right now because we must use the "dot" language as intermediate (since we generate an intermediate "dot" file)

GraphViz is a treasure of powerfull algorithms that will allow us to generate better diagrams.
But don't hold your breath !

...