Structurizr quick tip: hiding descriptions

By default, Structurizr will include an element's descriptive text inside of that element when rendering a diagram:

While that level of information definitely enriches the diagram, there are situations where you might not want to show the descriptive text, for example if you're doing a presentation. For this reason, Structurizr allows you to hide the descriptive text in a couple of ways.

When you're viewing a diagram, pressing the d key will toggle the descriptions on and off:

If you'd like to hide the descriptions a little more permanently, you can use a style for the Element tag, setting the description property to false. For example, with the Structurizr DSL:

styles {
  element "Element" {
    description false
  }
  ...
}

As a bonus tip, you can also increase the font size in a similar way, to enlarge the text for presentation purposes:

Summary

The descriptive text can be useful, but sometimes you don't need to see it. Structurizr makes it easy to show/hide element descriptions, without needing to modify your diagram.