Glossary¶

Each word used across these pages with a meaning of its own is defined here once. The other pages link to it the first time they use it.

Block¶

A d2 code block in a Markdown page. Each block becomes one figure when the site is built.

Board¶

One picture of a diagram. A diagram with no layers, scenarios or steps has one board. Each layer, scenario and step D2 finds in it adds another, named by its path, such as steps.1 or layers.detail.

Cache¶

The folder where the build keeps every picture it draws, so it only draws a diagram again when the diagram or a setting changes. It is .cache/markdown-d2 unless you set cache_dir.

d2-config¶

The vars.d2-config map at the top of a diagram, where D2's own settings go: the layout engine, sketch mode, themes and others. It applies to that diagram only.

Fence¶

The kind of code block pymdownx.superfences hands to a function of your choice instead of showing it as code. markdown-d2 adds a fence named d2, so every block written with ```d2 becomes a figure.

Figure¶

The HTML element a block becomes: every board of the diagram, drawn once in the light theme and once in the dark one, with buttons to move between boards and to open the diagram full screen.

Formatter¶

The function pymdownx.superfences calls for each d2 block. You create it with markdown_d2.formatter, and its keyword arguments are the settings. In zensical.toml they go in the kwds table of the fence's format.

Layout engine¶

The part of D2 that decides where each shape goes. D2 uses dagre unless a diagram's d2-config picks another, such as elk.

Page cache¶

The cache zensical keeps of whole pages, apart from the cache of pictures. It renders a page again when the page's text or the site's settings change, not when a file the page imports changes.

Root¶

The folder that imports and icons are found in. A block can only use files inside it.

Step¶

What the reader moves to with the arrow buttons: the next board of the diagram. Every board counts, whether D2 made it from a layer, a scenario or a step.

Theme¶

A set of colours D2 draws with, picked by number, such as 0 for the light default and 200 for a dark one. Each figure holds a light and a dark picture, and the site's own light or dark mode decides which one shows.

Transition¶

How the figure changes from one step to the next: at once, with a fade, or with a morph that moves each shared shape to its new place.

zensical¶

The site generator these pages are built with. It turns the Markdown pages in docs/ into a website, reading its settings from zensical.toml.