I have about a 50/50 strike rate on getting Graphviz DOT notation correct at any given moment. This drastically reduces if I want the correct syntax and a graph looking like the way I want it to look!!! [edit] Came across this good guide to Graphviz DOT notation.
For a while, I have used online viewers to check my output, it was something of a clunky workflow. [edit] I did some reverse engineering of the code and worked out you can pass a URL parameter to specify the engine.
https://dreampuf.github.io/GraphvizOnline/?engine=<name>#<graph data>
where <name> = dot, circo, fdp, neato, osage, or twopi. eg from DOT to CIRCO.
What I needed was something more sophisticated to;
- Version Control - Notepad++ Verbose Backup with date and time of each save.
- Correct Syntax - Notepad++ Graphviz user defined language
- Check the output - Notepad++ preview plugin which launches Graphviz
(a specific version to download as its a bit hard to find graphviz-2.44.1-win32.zip)
You can follow the detailed instructions but this is what I did.
- Turn on Verbose Backup in Settings|Preferences|Backup and set a backup directory.
- Import graphviz-notepad-udl.xml via the User Defined Language dialog which is accessible via the to Language|User Defined Lanuage|Define Your Language menu. After importing, I changed the file extension to DOT (my personal preference for extension) and you select Graphviz from the User Language drop-down Listbox.
- Download the correct 32 or 64bit DLL, depending on if you are using 32 or 64 bit Notepad++. Import the plugin DLL via the menu Settings|Import|Import Plugin(s). Note - the Notepad++ plugin install instructions on the Github site are out of date.
- The first time you press F9 the preview you will have to point to the command line tool Graphviz\Bin directory if it cannot find it on your PATH environment variable. I just unzipped the graphviz-2.44.1-win32.zip to a directory.
This should give you colour coded syntax and access to a Graphviz preview via the F9 key.
