Automatic export

[Flowkap]

Ist it possible to configure an automatic export on build events or on save to a specified puml file?

Anyway thanks for the plugin!

[hallvard]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Do you mean export to an image file whenever the file from which it was derived/generated changes? What do you think of the following behaviour: Have an auto-export flag in the preferences. When it is set, whenever a file changes that has a corresponding image file (previously) generated by plantuml in the same folder, re-generate the image. This means you must manually export the image once, later it will be auto-replaced.

[Flowkap]

Yeah for example.

Nice would be also to select which format ( not only images but raw puml for example)

Some more questions in general:
Are there settings already?
How to access them?
Can I limit which classes from ecore (default are all)?
Is automation by maven or gradle possible?

Thanks for the quick reply anyway :)

[hallvard]

The format should be derived from the file extension when you save the diagram. If the file extension is puml or plantuml, the diagram source is saved, otherwise the image.

The preferences are those provided by Eclipse, e.g. Window -> Preferences on Windows, Command-, on Mac.

If you want to limit which classes to generate from an Ecore file, please create another issue.

[paulvi]

I second this. The should be an option, that

for somefile.puml file on save a somefile.png is created/updated.

This is good to commit to version control, and other teammates do not need to install plugin to view.
The png can be inlined in markdown, javadoc without extra build steps.

[dvojtise]

another good scenario where this automatic png export would be useful:
de-jcup/eclipse-asciidoctor-editor#98

Ie. if an asciidoc uses normal import for images rather than embedded plantuml, then the asciidoc preview will be correct too.

[dvojtise]

@paulvi However, there is one drawback when using exporting png and saving them in the versioning system.
due to user environment issue such as: http://forum.plantuml.net/5425/relation-long-with-graphviz-using-labels-relations-namespace, the png file may vary between 2 users without any change in the puml file
😞

[Flowkap]

You don't need to save them in git but auto save would be extremely convenient.

[dvojtise]

Agreed, I do think autogeneration of png is useful,
only storing it in git may raise issue (and would require a good .gitignore to avoid flaky changes)

[Flowkap]

Generally managing what's checked in is independent of the plug-in feature I think.