Show HN: Alter – convert text/code to an image
alter.cf
alter.cf
var lineLengthOrder = lines.slice(0).sort(function(a, b) {
return b.length - a.length;
});
ctx.canvas.width = ctx.measureText(lineLengthOrder[0]).width + 25;
1. Sorting all the lines just to get the longest is pretty wasteful. Try an explicit loop that iterates over the array once, keeping track of the longest line seen so far.
2. Using measureText to get the visible length of a line is a good idea, but doesn't mesh with using the .length property to find the longest line. Some characters may be wider than others, so a line containing fewer characters (shorter .length) could actually be longer (using measureText) than the one with the most characters. Try copy-pasting some Chinese from https://zh.wikipedia.org and compare with a line containing the same number of Latin characters.
To also say something positive: At least it looks nice!
lines.reduce((longest, line) => (longest.length > line.length) ? longest : line, "")
EDIT: sorry, initial code returned length, not line itself
Edit: `lines.reduce((line, line_) => line_.length > line.length ? line_ : line, '')`
Math.max(...lines.map((line) => ctx.measureText(line).width))I'll iterate through the array instead. If you have any other suggestions, the repo is at https://github.com/KingPixil/alter
It does what it says (although I'm not sure how useful what it does is).
Still, good job.
I suspect it may be used to enforce custom fonts in an old-fashioned way, but nowadays you would simply deliver the font with you site, or use a font service.
Or, it could serve as some kind of "copy-protection", but it would not protect against OCR.
Thinking more about it, this may be a diabolic way to collect strings from people who want to make them "copy-protectable". So you don't need OCR anymore, but fetch them from the source. ;-)
Either way, it's a nice project with a good execution!
Twitter.
I agree. Very quick too. I tried it with some ascii art and it makes the overall image a bit thinner, though:(
(not handling spaces correctly)
Image: https://sli.mg/ZSLtf6
Ascii Source: http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/ghi/gary_larson.txt
The problem is that it finds the longest line, by the number of characters in it. Instead of taking the actual width.
1. Transparent Background (and)
2. Choice of character color (to integrate better with a webpage's color scheme, for example)
So basically, the main use-case of Alter is that it lets you tweet code snippets that are a little over 140 characters that are formatted correctly.
It can also be used for more, such as "copy-protection", like you said above.