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title: Using App::Basis::ConvertText2
format: pdf
author: Kevin Mulholland
keywords: perl, readme, markdown
template: default
date: 2017-02-28
version: 8
Introduction
If you are reading this document as a markdown document you may want to try [README PDF] as an alternative.
This have been generated from this file and the software provided by this distribution.
This is a perl module and a script that makes use of %TITLE%
This is a wrapper for [pandoc] implementing extra fenced code-blocks to allow the creation of charts and graphs etc.
Documents may be created a variety of formats. If you want to create nice PDFs
then it can use [PrinceXML] to generate great looking PDFs or you can use [wkhtmltopdf] to create PDFs that are almost as good, the default is to use pandoc which, for me, does not work as well.
HTML templates can also be used to control the layout of your documents.
The fenced code block handlers are implemented as plugins and it is a simple process to add new ones.
You will then be able to use the ct2 script to process files
If you are reading this document in PDF form, then note that all the images are created by the various plugins and included in the output, there is no store of pre-built images. That you can read this proves the plugins all work!
Most of the chapters are based around the various plugins that are available and the commands that they expose.
Document header and variables
If you are just creating simple things, then you do not need a document header, but to make full use of the templating system, having header information is vital.
Example
title: App::Basis::ConvertText2
format: pdf
date: 2014-05-12
author: Kevin Mulholland
keywords: perl, readme
template: coverpage
version: 5
As you can see, we use a series of key value pairs separated with a colon. The keys may be anything you like, except for the following which have special significance.
format shows what output format we should default to.
template shows which template we should use
The keys may be used as variables in your document or in the template, by upper-casing and prefixing and postfixing percent symbols '%'
Example
version as a variable %VERSION%
If you want to display the name of a variable without it being interpreted, prefix it
with a backslash '', this will be removed in the final document.
Example
Output
%TITLE%
%TITLE%
Gotchas about variables
Variables used within the content area of a code-block will be evaluated before processing that block, if a variable has not yet been defined or saved to a buffer then it will only be evaluated at the end of document processing, so output may not be as expected.
Variables used in markdown tables may not do what you expect if the variable is multi-line.
Table of contents
As documents are processed, the HTML headers (H2..H6) are collected together to make a table of contents. This can be used either in your template or document using the TOC variable.
Example
%TOdC%
The built table of contents is at the top of this document.
Note that if using a TOC, then the HTML headers are changed to have a number prefixed to them, this helps ensure that all the TOC references are unique.
Skipping header {.toc_skip}
If you do not want an item added to the toc add the class 'toc_skip' to the header (or skiptoc)
Example
### Skipping header {.toc_skip}
Hopefully you can see that the header for this section is not in the TOC
This feature is disabled at the moment while bugs are fixed.
Admonitions
There are certain statements that you may want to draw attention to by taking them out of the content’s flow and labeling them with a priority. These are called admonitions. It’s rendered style is determined by the assigned label (i.e., value). We provide twelve admonition style labels:
NOTE
INFO
TIP
IMPORTANT
CAUTION
WARNING
DANGER
TODO
ASIDE
QUESTION
FIXME
ERROR
When you want to call attention to a single paragraph, start the first line of the paragraph with the label you want to use. The label must be uppercase and followed by a colon ':'
WARNING: Something could go wrong if you do not follow the rules
The label must be uppercase and immediately followed by a colon ':'
Separate the first line of the paragraph from the label by a single space.
Title is the name of the admonition, unless specified - see below
And here is the generated Admonition
WARNING: Something could go wrong if you do not follow the rules
Titles may be included in admonitions, add them in within brackets, note that there are no spaces between the admonition name and the colon.
NOTE(title for note): Something could go wrong if you do not follow the rules
And here is an example with a title
NOTE(title for note): Something could go wrong if you do not follow the rules
All the Admonitions have associated icons.
Normal Markup may be used in the paragraph.
Admonitions are processed before the rest of the document, so you cannot put their contents into buffers and expect them to work correctly.
Admonitions are a short cut to Admonition Boxes which allow multiple paragraphs to be used.
Font Awesome
Font Awesome provides many useful icons,see [Font Awesome Cheatsheet], however there is a lot of hassle to add them to your document; we of course offer a simple shortcut, with the form
\:fa:font-name
E.g.
\:fa:trash
Will display a :fa:trash icon.
NOTE: We do not use the preceding 'fa-' in the name as Font Awesome does.
So 'trash' rather than 'fa-trash'.
It is possible to scale the images, give them colors and apply CSS classes to them by adding this information in square brackets
:fa:graduation-cap:[2x] vs :fa:graduation-cap:[2x fliph]
fixed width [fw]
:fa:gamepad:[2x]. vs :fa:gamepad:[2x fw].
note the normal font (left) has a smaller space before the '.' than the fixed width font (right)
border [border]
:fa⚙️[ border]
Any thing remaining in the square brackets after handling the above options will be considered as a class to be applied to the icon.
Of course multiple options may be combined
\:fa:trash:[2x 90 #red border]
as :fa:trash:[2x 90 #red border]
Google Material Icons
Google also provides many useful icons,see [Google Material Font Cheatsheet], however there is a lot of hassle to add them to your document; we of course offer a simple shortcut, with the form
\:mi:font-name
E.g.
\:mi:add-shopping-cart
Will display a :mi:add-shopping-cart icon.
NOTE: Google Material fonts do not usually have a '-' in them, we use this to allow us to know where the font name ends. It is removed.
It is possible to scale the images, give them colors and apply CSS classes to them by adding this information in square brackets
:mi:add-shopping-cart:[2x] vs :mi:add-shopping-cart:[2x fliph]
foreground color [#orangea700]
:mi📖[2x #orangea700]
foreground and background color [#yellow.black]
:mi📖[2x #yellow.black]
Any thing remaining in the square brackets after handling the above options will be considered as a class to be applied to the icon.
Of course multiple options may be combined
\:mi:delete:[2x 90 #red border-inset-grey]
as :mi:delete:[2x 90 #red border-inset-grey]
All of the google material colors are available to be used both in css and style sections.
Orange with an accent of A700, is named as orangea700. Light blue 500 is lightblue500.
Anywhere in your document/css that uses color= or color: then these replacements can be made.
For the complete list of colors see [Google Colors]
Default Icons
It is possible to specify icons without type, however this is currently defaulting to Material Icons, until a third option is found, like the github set.
\:cake: should show a :cake:
Including other files
It is possible to include content from other files, the methods match fenced code-block and their short cuts.
The optional arguments are
class
add a div with this CSS class name
style
add a div with this CSS style
markdown
import file is markdown and will need some tidying up
headings
if a markdown file, add this nunber of '#' characters to headers in the imported file
date
add the date the import file was updated to the end of the imported text
Either of these methods will bring the contents of the file inline to the current document at the location where they are used.
Font effects
Markdown does not include any facility for setting the maniulating the font of text in a document, however sometimes it is useful to be able to do some basic manipulation.
We have a HTML-like constructs
For Underline - standard HTML
<u> Your text </u>
For Strikethroughs - standard HTML
<s> Your text </s>
For Colors
<c:colorname> Your text </c>
<c:#foreground.background> Your text </c>
Example
Output
<c\:red>set this string to red</c>
<c\:#white.blue>White foreground,
blue background</c>
<c\:#.green300>green300 background</c>
<c:red>set this string to red
<c:#white.blue>White foreground, blue background
<c:#.green300>green300 background
Fenced code-blocks
A fenced code-block is a way of showing that some text needs to be handled differently. Often this is used to allow markdown systems (and [pandoc] is no exception) to highlight program code.
Code-blocks ALWAYS start at the start of a line without any preceding whitespace.
The 'top' line of the code-block can wrap onto subsequent lines, this line is considered complete when the final '}' is seen. There should be only whitespace after the closing '}' symbol before the next line.
We use this construct to create our own handlers to generate HTML or markdown.
Note that only code-blocks described in this documentation have special handlers and
can make use of extra features such as buffering.
If using [pandoc] then you can take advantage of the code blocks for code syntax highlighting
Example
~~~~{.perl}
sub process
{
my $self = shift ;
my ( $tag, $content, $params, $cachedir ) = @_ ;
# make sure we have no tabs
$content =~ s/\t/ /gsm ;
$content = "ditaa\n$content" ;
# and process with the normal uml command
$params->{png} = 1 ;
return run_block( 'uml', $content, $params, $cachedir ) ;
}
~~~~
Output
~~~~{.perl}
sub process
{
my $self = shift ;
my ( $tag, $content, $params, $cachedir ) = @_ ;
# make sure we have no tabs
$content =~ s/\t/ /gsm ;
$content = "ditaa\n$content" ;
# and process with the normal uml command
$params->{png} = 1 ;
return run_block( 'uml', $content, $params, $cachedir ) ;
}
</table>
#### External content
Its is possible to bring in content from another file by using the *file* attribute.
~~~~{.table file="/tmp/data.csv"}
~~~~
This is also valid when using short cuts
\{\{.table file="/tmp/data.csv"}}
### Code-block short cuts
Sometimes using a fenced code-block is overkill, especially if the command to be executed does not have any content. So there is a shortcut to this. Additionally this will allow you to use multiple commands on a single line, this may be important in some instances.
Finally note that the shortcut must completely reside on a single line, it cannot span onto a separate next line, the parser will ignore it!
We wrap the command and its arguments with double braces.
<table class='box' width='99%'>
<tr><th width='100%'>Example</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>
\{\{.tag argument1='fred' arg2=3}}
</td></tr></table>
Its is possible to add content that would normally be within the fenced code-block, if there is not too much information, by adding it to a *content* attribute.
We can see this in action below and in the barcode examples later on.
<table class='box' width='99%'>
<tr><th width='100%'>Example</th></tr>
<tr>
<td>
\{\{.tag argument1='fred' arg2=3 content='some text'}}
</td></tr></table>
## Buffers
Sometimes you may either want to repeatedly use the same information or may want to use the output from one of the fenced code-blocks .
To store data we use the **to_buffer** argument to any code-block.
~~~~{.buffer to_buffer='spark_data'}
1,4,5,20,4,5,3,1
If the code-block would normally produce some output that we do not want displayed at the current location then we would need to use the no_output argument.
We can also have the content of a code-block replaced with content from a buffer by using the from_buffer argument. This is also displayed in the example above.
To use the contents (or output of a buffered code-block) we wrap the name of the buffer
once again with percent '%' symbols, once again we force upper case.
Example
%SPARK_DATA% has content %SPARK_DATA%
%GREENSPARK% has a generated image %GREENSPARK%
Buffering also allows us to add content into markdown constructs like bullets.
Example
Output
* %SPARK_DATA%
* %GREENSPARK%
* %SPARK_DATA%
* %GREENSPARK%
By using setting an ifnot attribute to a true value, it is possible to only set the contents of the buffer if the buffer is currently empty. This is useful in cases where a parent document wants to set a value and a child document, which may be used in other documents wants to have a default for instances when the parent document is not providing a value.
The text plugin has lots of simple handlers, they all output text/HTML.
Yamlasjson
Software engineers often use [JSON] to transfer data between systems, this often is not nice to create for documentation. [YAML] which is a superset of [JSON] is much cleaner
so we have a
Software engineers often use [XML] to transfer data between systems, this often is not nice to create for documentation. We cam create basic XML, we do not allow element attributes. If you want real XML layout use .xml in a fenced code block.
~~~~{.table separator=',' width='100%' legends=1 title='a caption'}
%TABLE_DATA%
~~~~
The table can be sorted too, reverse date (newest first)
~~~~{.table separator=',' width='100%' legends=1 sort='0r'}
%TABLE_DATA%
~~~~
Output
The table can be sorted too, reverse date (newest first)
Table cells can contain extra information to color the cell and provide alignment. This information needs to be enclosed in braces '{}' and be the last data in the cell
#foreground
set the foreground color only
eg #red red text on a default background
#foreground.background
set the foreground and background color
eg #white.red white text on a red background
'=' align: center
'<' align: left
'>' align: right
'^' vertical align top
'-' vertical-align middle
'_' vertical-align bottom
'30px' set the width of a cell to 30px, obviously this can be any numerical value
'50%' set the width of a cell to 50%, obviously this can be any numerical value between 0 and 100
c2 - column span a number of columns, 2 in this case
Currently the color needs to be the last thing in the braces for things to work properly
{=- #white.red}
center white text on a red background vertically and horizontally
Spreadsheet
This is very similar to Table but styled to look like a spreadsheet
class
HTML/CSS class name
id
HTML/CSS class
width
width of the table
style
style the table if not doing anything else
legends
if true first line csv as headings for table, these correspond to the data sets
separator
what should be used to separate cells, defaults to ','
align
align the table, left, middle/center (default), right
sort
column number to sort on, append 'r' to reverse the sort
title
add a caption to the table
worksheets (sheets)
adds 'tabs' to the spreadsheet, also adds a couple of blank rows to separate the spreadsheet from the rows
csv of sheets in a workbook.
to set one as active preceed name with '!'
i.e. 'Sheet 1, !Sheet 2, Sheet 3' will highlight 'Sheet 2' as the active sheet
The same cell align and color options from table are valid here too.
Example
~~~~{.spreadsheet separator=',' width='100%' legends=1
title='its a spreadsheet' worksheets='Sheet 1, !Sheet 2, Sheet 3'}
%TABLE_DATA%
~~~~
The spreadsheet can be sorted too, reverse date (newest first)
~~~~{.spreadsheet separator=',' width='100%' legends=1 sort='0r'
worksheets='Sheet 1, !Sheet 2, Sheet 3'}
%TABLE_DATA%
~~~~
Output
The spreadsheet can be sorted too, reverse date (newest first)
Links
With one code-block we can create a list of links
The code-block contents comprises a number of lines with a reference and a URL.
The reference comes first, then a '|' to separate it from the URL.
The reference may then be used elsewhere in your document if you enclose it with square ([]) brackets
There is only one argument
class
CSS class to style the list
These links used in this example are the ones used in this document.
pandoc | http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc
PrinceXML | http://www.princexml.com
Markdown | http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown
msc | http://www.mcternan.me.uk/mscgen/
ditaa | http://ditaa.sourceforge.net
PlantUML | http://plantuml.sourceforge.net
Salt | http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/salt.html
graphviz | http://graphviz.org
JSON | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Json
YAML | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaml
wkhtmltopdf | http://wkhtmltopdf.org/
My Github | https://github.com/27escape/App-Basis-ConvertText2/tree/master/scripts
Brewer | http://www.graphviz.org/content/color-names#brewer
README PDF | https://github.com/27escape/App-Basis-ConvertText2/blob/master/docs/README.pdf
Font Awesome Cheatsheet | http://fontawesome.io/cheatsheet/
Google Material Font Cheatsheet | https://www.google.com/design/icons/
Google Colors | http://www.google.com/design/spec/style/color.html#color-color-palette
Emoji Cheatsheet | http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com
Documents often need revision history. I use this code-block to create a nice
version table of this history.
The content for this code-block comprises a number of sections, each section then makes a row in the generated table.
version YYYY-MM-DD
indented change text
more changes
The version may be any string, YYYY-MM-DD shows the date the change took place.
Alternate date formats is DD-MM-YYYY and '/' may also be used as a field separator.
So give proper formatting to the content in the changes column you should indent
text after the version/date line with 4 spaces, not a tab character.
class
HTML/CSS class name
id
HTML/CSS class
width
width of the table
style
style the table if not doing anything else
title
create a title for the version table
0.1 2014-04-12
* removed ConvertFile.pm
* using Path::Tiny
0.006 2014-04-10
* first release to github
There are 2 ways for force the start of a new page, using the .page fenced code block or by having 4 '-' signs next to each other, i.e. '----' on a line on their own
Example
This is start a new page, again using short block form.
\{\{.page}}
as will this
----
Output
will not be shown as it will mess up the document!
Columns
Create a columner layout, like a newspaper. The full text in the content is split into columns, the height of the section is determined by the volume of the text.
The optional arguments are
count
number of columns to split into, defaults to 2
lines
number of lines the section should hold, defaults to 20
ruler
show a line between the columns, defaults to no,
options are 1, true or yes to show it
width
how wide should the column area be, defaults to 100%
Flexitarian lo-fi occupy, Echo Park yr chia keffiyeh iPhone pug kale chips
fashion axe PBR&B 90's readymade beard.
McSweeney's Tumblr semiotics
beard, flexitarian artisan bitters twee small batch next level PBR mustache
post-ironic stumptown.
Umami Pinterest mixtape Truffaut, Blue Bottle ugh
artisan whatever blog street art Odd Future crucifix tomato shore invisible
spelling.
If its useful to comment your software, likely you will also find it useful to comment your documents. Having a comment construct allows sections to be removed/hidden too.
Example
Output
Normal flow of text
~~~~\{.comment}
This comment is not seen in the generated document
~~~~
text continues
Normal flow of text
This comment is not seen in the generated document
text continues
Indent
Import a file and indent it 4 spaces. This is useful if you want to pull code or config files etc into your document to explain them.
The optional arguments are
class
add a div with this CSS class name
style
add a div with this CSS style
Example
Here is the example config file
\{\{.indent file=fred.conf style='background-color:grey50;'}}
text continues
Percent
Draw a percent bar
The required arguments are
value
value of the percent, required, max 100, min 0
The optional arguments are
color
color of the bar
border
add a grey border to the box
trigger
set the color based on the value, dark red, light red, orange, yellow, green
Show that something is important by putting it in a box
The optional arguments are
class
HTML/CSS class name
id
HTML/CSS class
width
width of the box (default 98%)
title
optional title for the section
style
style the box if not doing anything else
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Pellentesque sit amet accumsan est. Nulla facilisi.
Nulla lacus augue, gravida sit amet laoreet id,
commodo vitae velit. Fusce in nisi mi. Nulla congue
nulla ac bibendum semper. In rutrum sem eget purus
auctor porttitor. Mauris vel pellentesque lorem.
Vestibulum consectetur massa non fermentum dignissim.
Build a glossary of terms or abbreviations as you progress with your document. Show them later on, there is no way (currently) to place the glossary ahead of any definitions.
Example
This is a \{\{.gloss abbr='SMPL' def='short spelling of SAMPLE'}}. There are other things we can do \{\{.glossary abbr='test' define='Test long form and arguments'}}. You can also use the word *term* as a synonymn of *abbr*.
Optionally if there is a link to a item e.g. \[Links](#links)
\{\{.gloss abbr='msc' define='Message Sequence Charts' link=1}}
then this can link to the relevant website, the following link
has not been added to
\{\{.gloss abbr='JSON' define='JavaScript Object Notation'}},
so no link to the website.
Now finally, show the results using \{\{.gloss show=1}} or to get a more complete section use \{\{.gloss show=complete}} which will create a level 2 appendix section
\{\{.gloss show=1}}
\{\{.gloss show=complete}}
Output
This is a {{.gloss abbr='SMPL' def='short spelling of SAMPLE'}}. There are other things we can do {{.glossary abbr='test' define='Test long form and arguments'}}. You can also use the word *term* as a synonymn of *abbr*.
Optionally if there is a link to a item in Links {{.gloss abbr='msc' define='Message Sequence Charts' link=1}} then this can link to the relevant website, the following link has not been added to {{.gloss abbr='JSON' define='JavaScript Object Notation'}}, so no link to the website.
Now finally, show the results using {{.gloss show=1}} or to get a more complete section use {{.gloss show=complete}} which will create an appendix section
{{.gloss show=1}}
{{.gloss show=complete}}
If you find that you are using the same items in multiple documents, then you may wish to use a glossary file, this is a YAML file
\{\{.gloss yaml='somefile.yaml'}}
The YAML file has the format
glossary:
abbr: definition
BBC: British Broadcasting Company
then anytime that you use an abbreviation without a definition, then this will attempt to fetch the definition from the loaded YAML data
\{\{.gloss abbr='BBC'}}
Quote
Pandoc provides for blockquotes, these are often like
> a standard quote
> another line of the block
>
> And a final one
as
a standard quote
another line of the block
And a final one
We want something that can be styled differently and can have a title
The optional arguments are
class
HTML/CSS class name
id
HTML/CSS class
title
optional title for the section
Start by doing what's necessary;
then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the
impossible.
~ Francis of Assisi
We will buffer some data to start. The content comprises lines of comma separated data.
The first line of the content is the legends; subsequent lines relate
to each of these legends.
Software (or process) engineers often want to be able to show the sequence in which a number of events take place. We use the [msc] program for this. This program needs to be installed onto your system to allow this to work
The content for this code-block is EXACTLY the same that you would use as input to [msc]
Software engineers love to draw diagrams, [PlantUML] is a java component to make this simple.
You will need to have a script on your system called 'uml' that calls java with the plantuml component.
Mine is available from [My Github] repo.
The content for this code-block must be the same that you would use to with the [PlantUML] software
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
align
align the generated image, left, center, right
' this is a comment on one line
/' this is a
multi-line
comment'/
Alice -> Bob: Auth Request
Bob --> Alice: Auth Response
Alice -> Bob: Auth Request 2
Alice <-- Bob: Auth Response 2
Example
Output
~~~~{.uml width=350}
%UML%
~~~~
~~~~{.uml from_buffer=uml width=350}
~~~~
Salt
[PlantUML] can also create simple application interfaces See [Salt]
@startsalt
{
Just plain text
[This is my button]
() Unchecked radio
(X) Checked radio
[] Unchecked box
[X] Checked box
"Enter text here "
^This is a droplist^
{T
+ World
++ America
+++ Canada
+++ **USA**
++++ __New York__
++++ Boston
+++ Mexico
++ Europe
+++ Italy
+++ Germany
++++ Berlin
++ Africa
}
}
@endsalt
Example
Output
~~~~{.uml width=350}
%SALT%
~~~~
~~~~{.uml from_buffer=salt width=350}
~~~~
Sudoku
Plantuml can generate random sudoku patterns
Example
Output
~~~~{.uml width=350}
sudoku
~~~~
~~~~{.uml width=350}
sudoku
~~~~
To always generate the same pattern, append a seed value after 'sudoku'
~~~~{.uml}
sudoku 45azkdf4sqq
~~~~
Umltree
Draw a bulleted list as a tree using the plantuml salt GUI layout tool.
Bullets are expected to be indented by 4 spaces, we will only process bullets that are * + or -.
* one
* 1.1
* two
* two point 1
* 2.2
* three
* 3.1
* 3.2
* three point 3
* four
* five
* six
* 3 . seven
Example
Output
~~~~{.umltree width=350}
%UMLTREE%
~~~~
~~~~{.umltree from_buffer=umltree width=350}
~~~~
Ditaa
Diagrams Through Ascii Art
This is a special system to turn ASCII art into pretty pictures, nice to render diagrams.
You do need to make sure that you are using a proper monospaced font with your editor otherwise things will go awry with spaces.
Rather than use the [ditaa] application and to reduce the number of applications that need to be installed on the system, we use the ditaa component of plantuml. This does have some limitations, for example there is no way to switch spaces or shadows off. However this is a useful tradeoff
The content for this code-block must be the same that you would use to with the ditaa software.
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
Full example
+--------+ +-------+ +-----+
| +-->| ditaa +-->| |
| Text | +-------+ |image|
|Document| |!magic!| | |
| {d}| | | |cBLU |
+---+----+ +-------+ +-----+
: ^
| Lots of work |
\-----------------------+
To do by hand
Example
Output
~~~~{.ditaa width=350}
%DITAA%
~~~~
~~~~{.ditaa from_buffer=ditaa width=350}
~~~~
Graphviz
[graphviz] allows you to draw connected graphs using text descriptions.
The content for this code-block must be the same that you would use to with the [graphviz] software
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
command
command used to draw the graph, defaults to dot
options are dot, neato, twopi, fdp, sfdp, circo, osage
There is no nice way to convert plain text to mindmaps, the only way normally would be to use graphviz or something similar.
However, converting a bulleted list into a simple mindmap would be ideal!
Each bulleted item would be a node in the mindmap.
Bullets can be '*', '+' or '-' and should be indented 4 spaces to indicate a child. Poor indenting can be managed to a degree.
There should be a single top level bullet, which is used as the root of the map, see the example below. Multiple top level bullets will result in a badly organised mindmap.
Markdown style bold and italics markers can be used, as can '\n' to start a new line in a node.
Comments can be added and will be ignored when rendering the mindmap, anything following ' :' will be considered as a comment.
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
command
command used to draw the graph, defaults to dot
options are dot neato twopi fdp sfdp circo osage
scheme - color scheme to use - optional
default pastel28, schemes taken from [Brewer]
blue purple green grey mono orange red brown are shortcuts
shapes - list of shapes to use - optional
default box ellipse hexagon octagon
Bullet text can override some shapes
wrap in the following to get the required shape
[] shape=box
() shape=ellipse
<> shape=diamond
{} shape=octagon
include a shape=
shape=box3d
Bullet text can include a color override
#red or #123456 or #ff00ff
* base thought
+ (force ellipse)
+ in **bold**
+ another thing : ignore this
+ color red #red
* put this\none\non a few\nlines
Creating venn diagrams may sometimes be useful, though to be honest this implementation is not great, if I could find a better way to do this then I would!
Example
~~~~{.venn title="sample venn diagram"
legends="team1 team2 team3" scheme="rgb" explain='1'}
abel edward momo albert jack julien chris
edward isabel antonio delta albert kevin jake
gerald jake kevin lucia john edward
~~~~
Output
~~~~{.venn title="sample venn diagram" legends="team1 team2 team3" scheme="rgb" explain='1'}
abel edward momo albert jack julien chris
edward isabel antonio delta albert kevin jake
gerald jake kevin lucia john edward
~~~~
Barcodes
Sometimes having barcodes in your document may be useful, certainly qrcodes are popular.
The code-block only allows a single line of content. Some of the barcode types need
content of a specific length, warnings will be generated if the length is incorrect.
The arguments allowed are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
height
height of image
notext
flag to show we do not want the content text printed underneath the barcode.
version
version of qrcode, defaults to '2'
pixels
number of pixels that is a 'bit' in a qrcode, defaults to '2'
type
the type of the barcode
code39
coop2of5
ean8 - 8 characters allowed in content
ean13 - 13 characters allowed in content
iata20f5
industrial20f5
itf
matrix2of5
nw7
qrcode
Example
Output
Code 39
~~~~{.barcode type='code39'}
123456789
~~~~
{{.barcode type='code39' content=123456789}}
EAN8
~~~~{.barcode type='ean8'}
12345678
~~~~
{{.barcode type='ean8' content='12345678'}}
IATA2of5
~~~~{.barcode type='IATA2of5'}
12345678
~~~~
{{.barcode type='IATA2of5' content='12345678'}}
QR code
As qrcodes are now quite so prevalent, they have their own code-block type.
We can do qr codes, just put in anything you like, this is a URL for bbc news
size of image, default 720x512, widthxheight, size is approximate
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
transparent
flag to use a transparent background
set font texcmr hei 0.5 just tc
begin letz
data "saddle.z"
z = 3/2*(cos(3/5*(y-1))+5/4)/(1+(((x-4)/3)^2))
x from 0 to 20 step 0.5
y from 0 to 20 step 0.5
end letz
amove pagewidth()/2 pageheight()-0.1
write "Saddle Plot (3D)"
begin object saddle
begin surface
size 10 9
data "saddle.z"
xtitle "X-axis" hei 0.35 dist 0.7
ytitle "Y-axis" hei 0.35 dist 0.7
ztitle "Z-axis" hei 0.35 dist 0.9
top color blue
zaxis ticklen 0.1 min 0 hei 0.25
xaxis hei 0.25 dticks 4 nolast nofirst
yaxis hei 0.25 dticks 4
end surface
end object
amove pagewidth()/2 0.2
draw "saddle.bc"
set samples 21
set isosample 11
set xlabel "X axis" offset -3,-2
set ylabel "Y axis" offset 3,-2
set zlabel "Z axis" offset -5
set title "3D gnuplot demo"
set label 1 "surface boundary" at -10,-5,150 center
set arrow 1 from -10,-5,120 to -10,0,0 nohead
set arrow 2 from -10,-5,120 to 10,0,0 nohead
set arrow 3 from -10,-5,120 to 0,10,0 nohead
set arrow 4 from -10,-5,120 to 0,-10,0 nohead
set xrange [-10:10]
set yrange [-10:10]
splot x*y
Example
~~~~{.gnuplot}
%GNUPLOT%
~~~~
Output
{{.gnuplot from_buffer=gnuplot}}
Ploticus
This is a rather old school charting applitcation, though it can create some
graphs and charts that the other plugins cannot, e.g. Timelines.
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
Its best to let ploticus control the size of the generated images, you may need
some trial and error with the ploticus 'pagesize:' directive.
Example
~~~~{.ploticus}
// specify data using proc getdata
#proc getdata
data: Brazil 22
Columbia 17
"Costa Rica" 22
Guatemala 3
Honduras 12
Mexico 14
Nicaragua 28
Belize 9
"United States" 21
Canada 8
// render the pie graph using proc pie
#proc pie
datafield: 2
labelfield: 1
labelmode: line+label
center: 4 3
radius: 1
colors: oceanblue
outlinedetails: color=white
labelfarout: 1.3
total: 256
~~~~
Output
// specify data using proc getdata
pagesize: 8 8
#proc getdata
data: Brazil 22
Columbia 17
"Costa Rica" 22
Guatemala 3
Honduras 12
Mexico 14
Nicaragua 28
Belize 9
"United States" 21
Canada 8
// render the pie graph using proc pie
#proc pie
datafield: 2
labelfield: 1
labelmode: line+label
center: 4 3
radius: 1
colors: oceanblue
outlinedetails: color=white
labelfarout: 1.3
total: 256
#proc getdata
data:
NBC 8:00 9:00 "Wind\non Water"
NBC 9:00 9:30 "Encore!\nEncore!"
NBC 9:30 10:00 "Conrad\nBloom"
NBC 10:00 11:00 "Trinity"
ABC 8:00 8:30 "Secret\nLives"
ABC 8:30 9:00 "Sports\nNight"
ABC 9:00 11:00 "Movie of the Week"
CBS 8:00 8:30 "Cosby"
CBS 8:30 9:00 "Kids say..."
CBS 9:00 10:00 "Charmed"
CBS 10:00 11:00 "To have\nand to Hold"
#proc areadef
title: Evening television schedule
rectangle: 1 1 7 3
xscaletype: time
xrange: 08:00 11:00
yscaletype: categories
ycategories:
NBC
ABC
CBS
#proc xaxis
stubs: inc 1 hours
#proc yaxis
stubs: categories
#proc bars
color: powderblue2
axis: x
locfield: 1
segmentfields: 2 3
labelfield: 4
longwayslabel: yes
labeldetails: size=6
Polaroid
Display an image with a bounding box so it looks like a polaroid snap.
reate a polaroid style image with space underneath for writing on.
Image may be automatically rotated depending upon the exif information
The required arguments are
src
filename to convert to a polaroid
The optional arguments are
title
title for the photo
date
optional date for the photo
Example
Output
~~~~{.polaroid src='heartp.jpg'
title='The heart of Paris'
date='2015-02-06'}
~~~~
~~~~{.polaroid src='heartp.jpg' title='The heart of Paris' date='2015-02-06'}
~~~~
Blockdiag
Blockdiag provides a number of ways to create nice diagrams. See http://blockdiag.com/ for more information, how to install and examples.
To keep things simple, we add the correct wrapper around the fenced codeblock, so that there is no need to add blockdiag { etc to the start and end of the blocks.
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
transparent
should the background be transparent, default true
blockdiag
Similar to graphviz, layout is more grid based.
note [shape = note];
mail [shape = mail];
cloud [shape = cloud];
actor [shape = actor];
note -> mail ;
mail -> cloud ;
mail -> thing ;
note -> actor;
This plugin requires phantomjs to be installed on your system.
All the charts have some optional arguments in common
size
default 700x700
height
height of the chart, defaults to 700
width
width of the chart, defaults to 700
class
add to the class that the chart generates
initial class is named after the chart type (timeline, barchart, sankey etc)
Timeline chart
Timeline charts are useful for project management, as an alternative to gantt charts
The optional arguments are
title
used as the generated images 'alt' argument
size
size of image, widthxheight
width
just constrain the width
height
just constrain the height
class
add this class to the image
The timeline content consists of rows of lines with a task name, a task item, start and end times.
Optionally a #color note at the end of the line (HTML color name or triplet) will set the color of the bar.
The gantt content consists of rows of lines with a task id, a task name, a task group,
start and end times and optionally dependencies and percent completed.
We will set some data into a buffer for ease of use
~~~~{.buffer to_buffer=gantt}
%GANTT%
~~~~
Example
Output
Default
~~~~{.gantt
from_buffer=gantt
size=350x300}
~~~~
~~~~{.gantt from_buffer=gantt size=350x300}
~~~~
Sankey Chart
From google charts:
A sankey diagram is a visualization used to depict a flow from one set of values to another. The things being connected are called nodes and the connections are called links. Sankeys are best used when you want to show a many-to-many mapping between two domains (e.g., universities and majors) or multiple paths through a set of stages (for instance, Google Analytics uses sankeys to show how traffic flows from pages to other pages on your web site).
For the curious, they're named after Captain Sankey, who created a diagram of steam engine efficiency that used arrows having widths proportional to heat loss.
The optional arguments are
colors
comma separated list of HTML color names (or triplets), to be used for the nodes and links
mode
how the link color is chosen
source - link color is the same as the source node
target - link color is the same as the target node
gradient - link color starts as node color and ends as target color
A | X | 5
A | Y | 7
A | Z | 6
B | X | 2
B | Y | 9
B | Z | 4
A Complex set - only a small portion of the data is being shown
~~~~{.sankey width=90%}
Brazil | Portugal | 5
Brazil | France | 1
Brazil | Spain | 1
Brazil | England | 1
Canada | Portugal | 1
Canada | France | 5
Canada | England | 1
Mexico | Portugal | 1
Mexico | England | 1
USA ,|Portugal | 1
Portugal | Angola | 2
...
~~~~
~~~~{.sankey width=90% }
Brazil | Portugal | 5
Brazil | France | 1
Brazil | Spain | 1
Brazil | England | 1
Canada | Portugal | 1
Canada | France | 5
Canada | England | 1
Mexico | Portugal | 1
Mexico | France | 1
Mexico | Spain | 5
Mexico | England | 1
USA | Portugal | 1
USA | France | 1
USA | Spain | 1
USA | England | 5
Portugal | Angola | 2
Portugal | Senegal | 1
Portugal | Morocco | 1
Portugal | South Africa | 3
France | Angola | 1
France | Senegal | 3
France | Mali | 3
France | Morocco | 3
France | South Africa | 1
Spain | Senegal | 1
Spain | Morocco | 3
Spain | South Africa | 1
England | Angola | 1
England | Senegal | 1
England | Morocco | 2
England | South Africa | 7
South Africa | China | 5
South Africa | India | 1
South Africa | Japan | 3
Angola | China | 5
Angola | India | 1
Angola | Japan | 3
Senegal | China | 5
Senegal | India | 1
Senegal | Japan | 3
Mali | China | 5
Mali | India | 1
Mali | Japan | 3
Morocco | China | 5
Morocco | India | 1
Morocco | Japan | 3
~~~~
Smilies / Emoji's
Conversion of some smilies to icons.
A small set of smilies are converted to UTF-8 characters, which can be tricky to show as not all fontsets support these.
Basic text smilies are handled, however there is also a range of smilies that are also available as words pre/post fixed with a colon, e.g. ::word::. Some of these will generate fontawesome icons and some will be picked from the very extensive [Emoji Cheatsheet], check this latter link for the full list of emoji words supported. Note that some of these may result, when generating PDFs, emoji's that do not display, trial and error is key!
Included in the distribution is a script to make use of all of the above code-blocks to alter [Markdown] into nicely formatted documents.
Here is the help
$ ct2 --help
Syntax: ct2 [options] filename
About: Convert my modified markdown text files into other formats, by
default will create HTML in same directory as the input file, will only
process .md files.
If there is no output option used the output will be to file of same
name
as the input filename but with an extension (if provided) from the
document, use format: keyword (pdf html doc).
[options]
-h, -?, --help Show help
-c, --clean Clean up the cache before use
converting to doc/odt
-o, --output Filename to store the output as, extension will
control conversion
-p, --prince Convert to PDF using princexml, rather than pandoc
--templates list available templates
-t, --template name of template to use
-v, --verbose verbose mode
-w, --wkhtmltopdf Convert to PDF using wkhtmltopdf
On the first time you run ct2 a default template will be created in ~/.ct2/templates/default/template.html, a config file to accompany this will be created in ~/.ct2/templates/default/template.html
Create new templates in ~/.ct2/templates, one directory for each template, follow the example in the default directory.
If you are using [PrinceXML], remember that it is only free for non-commercial use, it also adds a purple P to the top right of the first page of your document, though this does not appear when you print out the document.
About
Convert a special format of Markdown to other formats
