Usage Documentation

Roadmap Anatomy

Roadmap generated by Roadmapper consists of several components as depicted below:

• Title: This is the title of the roadmap.
• Subtitle: This is the subtitle of the roadmap.
• Timeline: This section shows roadmap timeline. Timeline consists of Year and Items. Timeline items can be configured to show different time scale as below:
  • weekly
  • monthly
  • quarterly
  • half-yearly
  • yearly
• Group: This is used to group all tasks together. Every task belongs to a group.
• Task: This is used to show task or activity for a given start and end date.
• Parallel Task: This is used to show a another task or activity on the same line.
• Milestone: This is used to show a 'diamond' shape symbol to denote a milestone. Milestone is optional.
• Footer: This is the footer of the roadmap. Footer is optional.
• Marker: This is the current date marker

Steps to create a roadmap

Step 1: Import Roadmap and TimelineMode package

from roadmapper.roadmap import Roadmap
from roadmapper.timelinemode import TimelineMode

Step 2: Create a Roadmap instance.

my_roadmap = Roadmap(width=500, height=300)

In the Roadmap constructor method, specify the roadmap canvas size. The measurement is in pixel. Optionally, you could also specify:

• auto_height: Option to let roadmapper to automatically resize the height of the generated roadmap image. Default is set to True
• colour_theme: There are currently five colour scheme to choose from, namely: DEFAULT, GREYWOOF, ORANGEPEEL, GREENTURTLE, BLUEMOUNTAIN. Setting colour at component level will overwrite the colour theme settings.
• show_marker: Set the current date marker on or off on the roadmap. Default is set to True
• painter_type: Set the painter type. The default painter type is 'png'. If you like to save the diagram in SVG format, specify painter_type="svg" when creating the Roadmap instance.

my_roadmap = Roadmap(width=500, height=300, auto_height=True, colour_theme="BLUEMOUNTAIN", show_marker=True, painter_Type="svg")

Step 3: Set the background colour (This step is optional)

roadmap.set_background_colour("lightblue")

Call set_background_colour() to specify the background colour. If your output file type is 'PNG', you can set the background to transparent by calling set_background_colour("transparent")

Step 4: Configure roadmap title, subtitle and timeline

my_roadmap.set_title("My Roadmap")
my_roadmap.set_subtitle("Matariki Technologies Inc.")
my_roadmap.set_timeline(mode=TimelineMode.MONTHLY, start="2022-11-14", number_of_items=6)

Call set_title() method to specify the text to be displayed as title. Optionally, you can specify font, font size, and font colour if you want to change the style.

my_roadmap.set_title(
    text="My Roadmap", 
    font="arial.ttf", 
    font_size=18, 
    font_colour="Black",
)

Call set_subtitle() method to specify the text to be display as subtitle. Optionally, you can specify font, font size, and font colour if you want to change the style.

my_roadmap.set_subtitle(
    "Matariki Technologies Inc.",
    font="arial.ttf", 
    font_size=12, 
    font_colour="Black",
)

Call set_timeline() method to configure the roadmap timeline. The timeline changes depending on the mode, start date and number of items to be display on the canvas. Additional parameters can be passed in to configure the font, font size, font colour and fill colour.

Note:

• Roadmapper uses ISO 8601 standard for date representation. All dates must be entered in "YYYY-MM-DD" format.
• font, font_size, font_colour, fill_colour are depreciated in v1.0.0. To change timeline font, font size, font colour and fill colour, you have to specify the settings for both year and item separately:

my_roadmap.set_timeline(
    mode=TimelineMode.MONTHLY, 
    start="2022-11-14", 
    number_of_items=6, 
    show_generic_dates=False
    font="arial.ttf", 
    year_font_size=18, 
    year_font_colour="Black"
    year_fill_colour="Lightblue",
    item_font="arial.ttf", 
    item_font_size=18, 
    item_font_colour="Black"
    item_fill_colour="Lightblue"
)

year_font_colour, year_fill_colour, item_font_colour and item_fill_colour support web colour name (e.g. Red) or hex code (e.g. #FF0000) Supported TimelineMode includes:

• TimelineMode.WEEKLY
• TimelineMode.MONTHLY (default)
• TimelineMode.QUARTERLY
• TimelineMode.HALF_YEAR
• TimelineMode.YEARLY

Set show_generic_dates to True if you want to display generic non specific dates like Month 1, Month 2, etc instead of actual date like February 2023
When timeline mode is set to "TimelineMode.WEEKLY", you can also set show_first_day_of_week to True if you want to display first day of week instead of W1, W2, etc.

Step 5: Add group and task(s) to the roadmap

group = my_roadmap.add_group("Development")
group.add_task("Activity 1", "2022-12-01", "2023-02-10") 

You can add more tasks by calling add_task() method multiple time.

group.add_task("Activity 2", "2023-01-11", "2023-03-20")
group.add_task("Activity 3", "2023-01-21", "2023-06-30")

Step 6: Configure footer

my_roadmap.set_footer("Generated by Roadmapper")

Step 7: Render the roadmap

my_roadmap.draw()

Step 8: Save the roadmap to a PNG file format

my_roadmap.save("my_roadmap.png")

Output

For more help on how to use Roadmapper, please refer to the Roadmapper How-To Guide