Review - PyFlowchart
May 19, 2021•314 words
I was looking for a quick and simple way to generate flow-charts. Specifically, I wanted to illustrate the customer onboarding flow for a web app including (registration, user verification, enable 2fa, etc.) As I have been up-skilling in Python, I googled python flowchart generator and the first result was PyFlowchart.
I skimmed through PyFlowchart I decided to give it a go. And after about 5 minutes I had created a flowchart from a simple set of instructions :) I have since used it to create a whole series of flowcharts and I'm v satisfied with it.
Getting started with PyFlowchart
1. Step one: install pyflowchart via the command line
$ pip3 install pyflowchart
2. Create a new python (.py) file and import all from pyflowchart
#first-flowchart.py
from pyflowchart import *
3. Get familiar with PyFlowchart node types
| Node Type | Example |
|---|---|
| StartNode | start = StartNode('Registration') |
| ConditionNode | cond = ConditionNode('Already have an account?') |
| InputOutputNode | io_enter = InputOutputNode(InputOutputNode.INPUT, 'Enter Email & Password') |
| OperationNode | op = OperationNode('Confirm Email') |
| InputOutputNode | io_confirmation = InputOutputNode(InputOutputNode.OUTPUT, 'Account Created') |
| SubroutineNode | sub_login = SubroutineNode('Login') |
| EndNode | end = EndNode('Goodbye') |
4. Learn how to connect nodes
Nodes can be connected by [...].connect(...) method (connectyes or connectnow for ConditionNode)
start.connect(cond)
cond.connect_no(io_enter)
cond.connect_yes(sub_login)
...
5. Put it all together and generated flowchart domain specific language (DSL)
Get a Flowchart with your start node and call its flowchart() method to generate flowchart.js flowchart DSL
# first-flowchart.py
to be added
Save the above file and in the command line, run
$ python3 first-flowchat.py
Then copy the output and paste into flowchart.js
to be added
Voila, flowchart.js generates the corresponding flowchart which you can then save as and use elsehwhere.