Configuration file specification

Question

Dears,

Where I can find specification of the configuration file for the PlantUML?

In the command line options there is mention possibility to use that with "-config" option.

Best regards,

Seweryn.

Comments

Hi, I would like to know this as well. I tried using an include file which works when included from the design, but it does not work when passed as a config file.

Answer 1

It's not very documented nor widely used.
It only works in command line:

Suppose you have the two following files:

test1.txt:
@startuml
Alice->Bob : hello
@enduml


config.txt:
skinparam handwritten true

If you launch the following command:

java -jar plantuml.jar -config config.txt test1.txt

File "config.txt" is automatically included at the very beginning of the diagram.

Does it sound more clear ?

Comments

Hi,

Thanks a lot!

So it can be used as a kind of loader for the "basic" definitions library for the diagrams.

Its cool, because exactly such an options I need to batch-generate documentation from other scripts with common options or diagram definitions.

Best regards,
Seweryn.

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So basically the configuration file is just a set of plantuml commands that are included at the beginning of each graph.
I think it would be good to have a, small, paragraph in the documentation explaining this.

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So it's just the same as this option?

-I<file>

---

Hi, I writted some scripts generating puml files in ./puml and a README.md in ./ with links to the .svg plantuml generated. In my case I use

!include ../config.txt

in my main file describing all components. this file is self included by the other .puml files with

!include components.puml

also  all .puml files contains :

@startuml "component_name"

!include components.puml
'some stuff


@enduml

my main components.puml the include to config.txt

and the config.txt file contains puml code but without @startuml and @enduml, like :

skinparam shadowing true
!if %not(%variable_exists("$BGCOLOR"))
!$BGCOLOR = "transparent"
!endif
skinparam backgroundColor $BGCOLOR
!$PRIMARY = "#446e9b"
!$FGCOLOR = $WHITE
skinparam arrow {
    Thickness 3
    Color $PRIMARY
    FontColor $FGCOLOR
}
skinparam defaultFontSize    12


and so on ...

also i ran

java -jar plantuml-1.2022.4.jar "./puml" -tsvg -o "../dist_puml/puml"

that generates svg files that include hyperlinks in the relevant subfolder (I put ../ in the output adress because plantuml.jar wants to create the output inside the input _ ./puml/dist_puml/puml  if i do not, it is not very relevant but I describe)

in this case i do not use -config config.txt also I don't know what is best practices and if it's ok to do so, but I liked the idea to present this alternative

Thank you for your solution, I think I'll use it because I'll soon have to test much parameters/options and then it's handyer to make some different config files and call them with -config option rather than modify all the time files and includes

don't judge me, I'm a nOOb !