ASCIIToSVG – Create beautiful SVG renderings of ASCII diagrams | Hacker News Reader

ASCIIToSVG – Create beautiful SVG renderings of ASCII diagrams

github.com

34 pointspabs316 comments

I want to snidely remark in an HN thread that if you make a thing that generates visual output, you should show some examples of that output.

owner replied with "Ask GitHub to support insertion of SVG into their Markdown". Perhaps "screenshots" of the output in jpg or png are fine, too.

You can just use svg files in github markdown afaik

I've tried it with the logo diagram:

  .-------------------------.
  |                         |
  | .---.-. .-----. .-----. |
  | | .-. | +-->  | |  <--| |
  | | '-' | |  <--| +-->  | |
  | '---'-' '-----' '-----' |
  |  ascii     2      svg   |
  |                         |
  '-------------------------'

A screenshot of the resulting SVG in the GNOME Image Viewer: https://imgur.com/I6NySZp.

That might be 2% snide, but it’s 98% practical advice.

That's not even snide, that's just... basics. Otherwise why waste peoples' attention?

What an odd perspective.

Someone built a tool they thought was useful, and released it under the MIT license in case other people might benefit from it, but not putting a screenshot in the README is wasting people's attention?

Yeah.

"Hey, come look at this thing! It's really great, and makes pretty pictures, but you'll have to trust me on that. Sure, it's worth your time to figure out the issues; my lack of attention to the readme definitely hasn't extended to making this work on machines other than mine, honest."

I think you might be reading into it too much. Unless the README really is saying you should use it, as opposed to just describing what it is.

The readme is there to tell people what the project is about, why they should use it, and the basics of doing so—yes, absolutely. How are you going to get anybody to use your project or contribute to it if you can’t (or don’t) even make it clear why they should care?

I find Markdeep[1] easier than this.

[1] https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/

As a webapp for the diagram to svg portion only:

https://github.com/doersino/markdeep-diagram-drafting-board

They use screenshots to give an idea of the visual output.

It's truly astonishing!

ASCIIToSVG sounds interesting but Markdeep looks interesting.

I've been curious for a while why someone hasn't extended markdown into LaTeX territory and this looks like someone did.

Not sure that I see the point of this. Such ascii art seems more trouble to create than an equivalent diagram in an svg editor?

And if I want pretty output from a textual input wouldn't mermaid[1] make much more sense?

[1] https://mermaid.live

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