As 2024 winds down, we find ourselves reflecting: this has been a big year for improvements at PlantText. And we’re even more excited for what’s to come in 2025!
New Features & Functions
- Version 21 saw improvements to the Samples window that made it more responsive and easier to work with in combination with the editor.
- We added the auto refresh and auto scale options.
- We added PlantUML snippets for Use Case and Component diagrams, to go along with the Activity and Class diagram snippets.
- We provided an option to delete local data from the browser, in case you’re working on a public computer.
- We added new keybindings to the editor. We now support Vim, Emacs, Sublime and VSCode.
- We upgraded the PlantUML server to fix a bug with rendering unicode characters, including Chinese!
Performance & Reliability
In Version 22 we made some major architectural changes to meet the incredible growth in the PlantText community. Generating large diagrams can be taxing on the PlantText server. Also we set up a server farm of our own PlantUML servers, utilizing load balancing and auto-scaling. This has made all the difference, both for responsiveness and for uptime.
More How-To’s
- We started two new series on the blog: one on UML Diagram Types and one on Design Patterns.
- We posted some helpful how-to articles, including how to work with JSON in PlantText and how to use Autocomplete and Snippets. We’re all about making life easier for you.
- We started a YouTube channel, which will eventually house a whole library of how-to videos.
- We started the PlantText Geeks group on LinkedIn, to give you a place to ask questions and share diagrams.
Up Ahead in 2025
As great as 2024 has been, we are *really* excited for what’s coming next year. In the first quarter of 2025 we plan to roll out Version 23. This will include some major new features:
- single sign-on,
- the ability to synchronize local diagrams to the server,
- the option to remove ads with a paid subscription,
- and (drumroll please!) AI integration. This includes the ability to validate diagrams, generate plantUML, convert from plantUML to code and back, and generate JSON and YAML from diagrams.
We’ve been playing around with all of this in development, and it is going to be awesome!!!
A Note of Thanks
Thanks for all of the support this year, whether you’re a casual user, a die-hard or a donor. We’ve seen the user base grow to over a half a million people in 183 different countries! And we’re working hard behind the scenes on the planned new features to make diagramming even easier for you in 2025. Thanks for being a part of PlantText!