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TALA is open-source

| Alexander Wang

Following up on the announcement here, TALA (Terrastruct's AutoLayout Algorithm) is now open-source under the same license as D2 (MPL-2.0).

D2 is non-profit

| Alexander Wang · 5 min read

Hello, I'm happy to share the news that D2 is now fiscally sponsored by Hack Club!

The project was born and thus far developed as an open-core arm of a for-profit company. The development of open-source D2 was funded by the closed-source IDE (D2 Studio) and proprietary layout algorithm (TALA). The company is shutting down, and D2 will continue as an independent, completely open-source, non-profit project through Hack Club.

I will continue to maintain and improve D2. But my time commitment will be limited. It's not my primary focus anymore, but I remain committed to its continued development and am excited for the roadmap ahead. If you have interest in becoming a maintainer, please email me at alex@d2lang.com. High-quality maintenance and contributions may be invited to enter into a paid contributor contract, funded by donations to the non-profit. This would be ideal for a driven early-careerist with open-source experience.

ASCII output

| Alexander Wang · 3 min read

In the latest release of D2 (0.7.1), we introduce ASCII outputs.

Any output file with extension txt will use the ASCII renderer to write to it.

C4 Model

| Alexander Wang · 7 min read

The C4 Model is a diagramming framework. Over the years, we've had many practitioners request C4 features in D2. There's even a community-maintained exporter from the C4 creator's tool, Structurizr, to D2.

The C4 Model is a loose framework. Unlike UML, which says these symbols always and must mean certain things, the C4 model is a set of diagramming concepts. It's language and tool agnostic, and these powerful concepts have proven to provide software projects with clean, mature architecture diagrams.

With the latest 0.7 release of D2, we filled the gaps in the language to have first-class support of these concepts:

Text to PowerPoint

| Alexander Wang · 2 min read

D2 is a diagramming language, and it's versatile unlike any other. For example, you can create full PowerPoint presentations with just text.

It's not D2's primary function, but rather a natural byproduct of a powerful language. D2 built features for grid diagrams and animations, and users built pixel art. And now, with Markdown and Powerpoint, D2 is the easiest way to programmatically create PowerPoint presentations.

Text to (animated) diagrams

| Alexander Wang · 2 min read

This is a single SVG file created purely through D2 text:

Normal deploymentlocalgithubawscodedevmasterbuilderss3ec2workflows commitmerge triggerupload and runupload binaries pull binaries Hotfix deploymentlocalgithubawscodedevmasterbuilderss3ec2workflows merge triggerupload binaries pull binaries commitupload and run

D2 source to reproduce this is here: here, rendered with these parameters.

Brief factsheet:

  • Single file, weights 88kb, the vast majority is the embedded fonts so that it looks the same everywhere.
  • Well-formatted, readable D2 text (i.e. has newlines) is 85 lines.
  • Configurable. This animation has 1400ms intervals, but if you want the animation to linger for longer and shorter, simply change the flags.
  • Easily split into 2 separate SVGs (the default behavior of CLI when a flag is not passed in to animate).

Hand-drawn diagram aesthetic

| Alexander Wang · 3 min read

Sketch mode started out as a "wouldn't it be cool" weekend feature, and has since turned into one of the things people love most about D2.

When you pass the sketch flag like so, you'll get a diagram that kind of looks hand-drawn.