Markdown format export

In recent years, systems have spread that render Gantt charts written in markdown language (for example https://plantuml.com/ or https://mermaid-js.github.io). They are used to generate Gannt charts from source code comments, or are integrated into wikis or documentation tools.

Would it be possible to think of an export function from GanttProject to markdown language format?

Why the generated image generated from those tools (in markdown language) is better than the GanttProject export function? PDF, graphic… could also fit in your documents. At least, that is what I do.

For your question, an intermediate step that comes to my mind is to go GanttProject to Excel, and Excel / CSV to… what you need! :slight_smile:

I was not thinking about rendering a better image (GanttProject is able to generate excellent images), but to generate a basic starting Gantt for projects managed through Web-based Wikis, in order to update the Gantt on the Wiki itself.

Anyway thanks for the suggestion, I will try to go through intermediate exchange formats.

This is a reasonable and understandable enhancement, and there is even the issue in the tracker for this: Export to mermaid format · Issue #1668 · bardsoftware/ganttproject · GitHub

However, it requires significant efforts on coding and then on supporting the export code, while the demand in such feature is not that high. If you’re willing to invest your time into such kind of export, please let me know.

Since GanttProject uses XML as it’s fileformat, the best (IMHO) way to get from one structed language to another would be to use XSLT. Dmitry, is it possible to use XSLT with an export function in GanttProject?

This would indeed be a great enhancement, but as far as I can see, Mermaid supports far less features than GanttProject. So, @pgibellini, I would export my project to PNG and integrate that to the Wiki.

I don’t have a lot of time and I’m not skilled in Java, but I could start thinking about the export process.
@Twa’s suggestion to start from XML format could be a starting option.

I agree, an export to Mermaid and PlantUML couldn’t cover all the features of GanttProject, but initially one could start with a subset of the content, I will try to think about it.

I am not sure that I clearly understand what is “use XSLT with an export function”. You don’t need any export function to process GanttProject’s files with XSLT or any other tool. Just take the file and process it.

I thought about integrating such an XSLT-based export to the export capabilities of GanttProject. But I was just curious …