Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD)

[bbak]

I would be interested in building Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) using Mermaid.js. I already tried using the Flowchart type, but the positioning of the nodes is obviously optimized for a flow and not (feedback-)loops. Nevertheless, the flowchart type could serve as a base and the flowchart syntax may need just minor changes (with a little bit of luck even no changes at all).

What should be changed compared to a Flowchart is the following:

• Edges should always be shaped like a section of a circle (or loop).
• Positioning of nodes doesn't really have a direction like TD or similar; it could be more like inside-out or like Nodes at the top of the sourcecode have a tendency towards the center
• Any edge must denote the type of relationship between two nodes: either via a label like S, O or +, - to indicate if the edge represents a positive (Same direction) or negative (Opposite direction) relationship or by utilizing different edge styles.
• Ability to label loops: a variant of subsections may suit that.
• Ability to indicate a delay on an edge.

The positioning of the nodes, and therefore length of the edges is quite important since the latter is an indicator for the duration of the (feedback-)loop.

Here are some resources regarding the construction of CLDs:

• Guidelines for Drawing Causal Loop Diagrams
• The chapter on CLD in Systems Mapping - How to build and use causal models of systems (open access PDF or E-Pub from Springer)
• A huge and quite famous example from the UK Government, the Obesity System Map. That one uses different edge styles to distinguish S/O relationships. Additionally, I assume due to the size of the map, they didn't label the loops.

[sidharthv96]

@bbak can you please create an issue for this?
We have an issue template for new diagram suggestions.

https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/issues/new?assignees=&labels=Status%3A+Triage%2CType%3A+Enhancement%2CType%3A+New+Diagram&projects=&template=diagram_proposal.yml

[dudung]

Is there any progress on this? It is not continued to an issue as I saw it. I am also expecting this feature.

Edit
There is an issue about this #4453.

[bbak]

Yes, I created this one as requested. Apart from that, I'm not aware that something happened.

[dudung]

Is there any we can do? Should be it technical or we can discuss the syntaxes or anything else?

[timjore]

I need this as well. What kind of syntax might be helpful for creating CLDs in Mermaid?