ASCII diagram creator | Hacker News Reader

ASCII diagram creator

asciiflow.com

269 pointswhiskers39 comments

Perl has a module called 'Graph::Easy' which can create a diagram from a graph automatically, and can also do ASCII-output. See http://bloodgate.com/graph-demo for an interactive demo.

  [Sun] -- [Pear] [Apple] --> [Pear] [Pear] -- [fruit] --> [Pineapple] [Pear] --> [Cherry] [fruit] ==> [Done]

Renders to:

 | Cherry | +--------+ ^ | | +-------+     +--------+ | Apple | --> | +-------+     +--------+ |              H |              H |              v +--------+ |  Sun   | +--------+

Format: "ascii" not cgimage cmap cmapx gd gd2 gif gv imap jpg pct pdf pict plain sgi svg svgz tga tif x11 xdot xlib canon< But it works in a bit | Round-cornered | |      boxes     | `----------------'

-+ | >- Stretchy braces | -+

Also, GUI control mockups:



[ Dropdown lists |v]

[X] Checkboxes

(o) Radio buttons

Sliders: ---|----------

+-------------^ | Scroll bars # |             # |             | |             v <----######-->

Spin-boxes: [ 37.0 |:]

...you get the idea.

Being It's great because it It's great to document +---------------+ | | > = | | | % | | % +---------------+ +---------+ |(( | | ( O | | @K % | | % Y | | % Y | | | | +---------+ You teleport. The You die... Xom I hate traditional flowcharting ASCII is the portable +--------+ +-------+ +-----------+ Pear | --- | fruit | --> | Pineapple | +-------+ +-----------+ +-------+ | Done | +-------+

It's a pity that the GraphViz family of automatic graph drawing tools don't support ASCII:

  (user@air) /Users/user $ dot -Tascii recognized. Use one of: bmp cmapx_np dot eps exr fig imap_np ismap jp2 jpe jpeg plain-ext png ps ps2 psd tiff tk vml vmlz vrml wbmp /pre>

There is a similar Java application also: http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/ different way: converts such ASCII diagrams into bitmap graphics.

Some ideas for more features:
    ,----------------. ( Buttons ) able to select drawn items and move them around after the fact would also be great.

Also it would be nice if they supported IE.

When I saw this, it was down a vote or two.  I thank you, kind sir / madam, for making me bust a gut.Not because I think you're wrong.  Just that it's tantamount to bringing a bucket of KFC to a vegan event.

I'm not quite sure I understand your analogy unless you mean to say that asciiflows core principles include not using IE.

I think they mean that HN's core principles include not using IE.

What about ASCIIO? allows you to move and connect the blocks after you created them. source code.http://search.cpan.org/dist/App-Asciio/lib/App/Asciio.pm

Needless to say, Emacs can do it (M-x artist-mode)

Just what I was about to say http://www.cinsk.org/emacs/emacs-artist.html

Dammit, Emacs. http://xkcd.com/378/

But but but... what about python? http://xkcd.com/353/

Honestly? This is the first online wireframing tool that I've been able to use and instantly display what I want.Great work!

Just needed this the other day and found this application: http://www.jave.de/ More features, but also feels more complex.Screenshot: http://www.jave.de/screenshots/60rc2_screenshot.png

Reminds me of TheDraw from back in the day:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw

I know this is a beta, but one suggestion: have an option to export the HTML wrapped in a div/span/pre/<something> which has a monospace font style, this would make it truly effortless to export the html and save it as-is.Also I couldn't figure out how the arrow cursor worked or what one was supposed to do with it.
my remarks aside, very cool app!

Hints about the active tool appear at the bottom right; apparently the arrow tool is used for selecting  a region so you can copy it to the clipboard.

I'm really enjoying this, the utter simplicity of it has a certain appeal.  I would really like the ability to add columns / rows at the cursor position, though.  Moving things around / feature heaven / hell would be fun, but that I think would be a net improvement without breaking the simplicity at all.

Cool!  This is something I wanted to have and had started making for myself.  Mine is much less useful than asciiflow but the thing I like most about it is that it allows writing and drawing more in the way I use my notebook.  It's easy to write little blocks of text that aren't aligned along the left margin.Feature request:  In text mode, assign <enter> to move the cursor down a line and to the column that text entry began.
Here's my prototype:  http://norstrulde.org/tty/tty.html

I like this. I like this a lot. This is perfect for someone who just needs to get a few thoughts together and can't be bothered with firing up Dia or something similarly bloated.

Yes, it's really nice and simple - great that you can just cut and paste the result into an e-mail too!

This is very cool. And you can quickly create mockups for roguelike levels.
                                     +-------+     +------------+ |       |     |     >      |     -4/124 |        ||   <  | +---+%%%         |     15/15 |       | |   |%     \     | +--------+   %   | |   |     !!     | |       | |   |            |      +----+ |        |       | |   |            |      |%   | |  %%   +-+   +-----+------+      |    | |       |           |             |   >| |       |           |             |"   | |   %   |           |             +-+--+ +----+--+           +---------+     | |                        |     | |    +------------+  +---+-----+--+ |    |~~ P        |  |            | |    |~~~~     <  +--+      %   / | |    |~~~         |  +------------+ |    |            | c    Y---------+----+      ]     |   Slow Poisoned |            + |            | |   <        | +------------+          D:24

centaur shoots an arrow of flame. The arrow hits you.

says:"I guess I need a new plaything now."

Must you young'uns always try and reinvent the wheel?Thedraw FTW: http://www.syaross.org/thedraw/
Now get off my LAN

Looks like they're just honoring the age-old custom of adopting the idea to a new platform.

>Must you young'uns always try and reinvent the wheel?Yes. http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=spokeless+wheel
Thedraw?  or, excuse me, THEDRAW?  I haven't heard of that one before, and the page says next to nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDrawTheDraw was used mostly in the BBS scene to create ASCII/ANSI art for the BBS's log in screen and menus. There was an entire sub-community of artists back then.
To be fair, the website is a diagram tool that outputs ASCII, while TheDraw more more like a ASCII/ANSI illustration tool.
I didn't find any galleries of ANSI art out there but this page has a few screenshots: http://icodeforfood.com/shockwave-bbs/

textfiles.com would have quite a lot of ascii art from back then. Memories :)

This would make a good nethack level editor!

I was thinking the same thing

If this was a standalone application it would replace my notepad usage for notetaking 100%...

http://www.jave.de/

Wow thanks for that, ideally I'd like one without all that extra stuff and just the diagrams from asciiflow.. but that's just being pedantic :)

Too clever. Can VIM do it too?

A quick google shows someone wrote a plugin called drawit.vim.  Personally, I think this is one case where I'd rather use the mouse.

This is one of the best things I've seen all week. tools, they're wonky and a pain when you have to convert them to anything else. data format basically.

Very nice website!I tried to do the same with a 28x4 canvas with unicode for twitter, but client and host unicode rendering differences turn it into an unintelligible mess most of the time (www.draw140.com)

Oh wow, nice.Just what I needed to make a directory tree example for a readme.txt

Awesome! Bookmarked for future usage.

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