title: The "draw" language role: manual tags: #graphic #manual #zettelstore syntax: zmk back: 00001007031300 00001008000000 backward: 00001007031300 00001008000000 box-number: 1 copyright: (c) 2020-present by Detlef Stern created: 20220131142036 lang: en license: EUPL-1.2-or-later modified: 20230403123738 published: 20230403123738 visibility: public Sometimes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. To create some graphical representations, Zettelmarkup provides a simple mechanism. Characters like “`|`” or “`-`” already provide some visual feedback. For example, to create a picture containing two boxes that are connected via an arrow, the following representation is possible: ~~~draw +-------+ .-------. | Box 1 | ----> | Box 2 | +-------+ '-------' ~~~ Zettelstore translates this to: Technically spoken, the drawing is translated to a [SVG](00001008000000#svg) element. The following characters are interpreted to create a graphical representation. Some of them will start a path that results in a recognized object. | Character | Meaning | Path Start | | :-: | --- | :-: | | `+` | Corner | Yes | | `-` | Horizontal line | Yes | | `|` | Vertical line | Yes | | `<` | Left arrow | Yes | | `>` | Right arrow | No | | `v` | Down arrow | No | | `^` | Up arrow | Yes | | `:` | Dashed vertical line | Yes | | `=` | Dashed horizontal line | Yes | | `.` | Rounded corner | Yes | | `'` | Rounded corner | Yes | | `/` | North-east diagonal line | Yes | | `\` | South-east diagonal line | Yes | | `x` | A tick on a line | No | | `*` | A dot on a line | No | Interpretation of these characters starts at the top left corner and continues depending on the current character. All other characters are treated as text.