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Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

shaky.github.bushong.net

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Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#21

Post by rmc »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #14
davidjgraph wrote: post #7

These ideas always seem to top HN. They are cute, but interactive diagram editors have been around a while and, unfortunately, are just faster to use and are more flexible. Maybe it'd make more sense to just have one of these tools implement export to ACSII?

I think the appeal would be that, since it's text based, it's already supported by git/mercurial/svn/name-your-vcs. A binary format would need some sort of history/diff support inside it to work well with a specific plugin for s VCS. An XML-based format would integrate well with a VCS, but you lose the clarity of the ASCII based diagrams. It may seem "cute" or "toyish", but I woudl try to use it before giving an opin…

It is also supported in your text editor.

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#22

Post by txutxu »

storrgie wrote: post #9
captn3m0 wrote: post #4

This works very well with diagrams created using http://asciiflow.com/ Just tried it out and the export->copy->paste->save worked really, really well.

Is a great service, but I'd love to have something I can use locally. A _lot_ of my time diagramming is spent disconnected, transitioning over photos of whiteboards to actual diagrams. Are you aware of anything that is a local client?

There is years ago asciio, works well on linux environments, some distros have it already packaged, otherwise you can pull it from CPAN.

Looks something like this: http://wiki.cornempire.net/_media/asciiart/diagram1.png

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#23

Post by aembleton »

AstroJetson wrote: post #18

I use this tool almost every day turning sequence diagrams into drawings. https://www.websequencediagrams.com While the "back of a napkin"style is hip, management seems to prefer cleaner drawings. I'd use shakey, if it made "professional" drawings.

That looks like it's using Dot notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_%28graph_description_langu...

I like to use http://www.graphviz.org/ to convert from DOT to PNG.

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#24

Post by eljimmy »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #14
davidjgraph wrote: post #7

These ideas always seem to top HN. They are cute, but interactive diagram editors have been around a while and, unfortunately, are just faster to use and are more flexible. Maybe it'd make more sense to just have one of these tools implement export to ACSII?

I think the appeal would be that, since it's text based, it's already supported by git/mercurial/svn/name-your-vcs. A binary format would need some sort of history/diff support inside it to work well with a specific plugin for s VCS. An XML-based format would integrate well with a VCS, but you lose the clarity of the ASCII based diagrams. It may seem "cute" or "toyish", but I woudl try to use it before giving an opin…

Agreed. This could be very useful if leveraged into a Wiki-plugin.

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#25

Post by davidjgraph »

bphogan wrote: post #17
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the appeal would be that, since it's text based, it's already supported by git/mercurial/svn/name-your-vcs. A binary format would need some sort of history/diff support inside it to work well with a specific plugin for s VCS. An XML-based format would integrate well with a VCS, but you lose the clarity of the ASCII based diagrams. It may seem "cute" or "toyish", but I woudl try to use it before giving an opin…

This. I would love, as an author and teacher, to keep my flowcharts, diagrams, etc with my book code. Right now I'm using SVG for that, but it's kinda rotten.

Is that same problem, i.e. you want to be able to diff your diagrams or do you want the actual data format embedded in your document.

If it's the second, you can embed XML within SVG or a PNG. If you draw something simple in draw.io [0] (which I do co-author) and then "File->Export As" either "SVG with XML" or "PNG with XML" the diagram data is stored within the display format itself. This way you can just reload the SVG+XML or PNG+XML and carry on editing. But the PNG and SVG display as you'd normally expect.

Does that solve your problem?

[0] https://www.draw.io/?splash=0

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#26

Post by Aardwolf »

That is pretty awesome!

I only found two bugs:

1) if you type just something small, like "asdf", it doesn't render. It seems to require you to start with a long horizontal line to make it properly calculate the width.

2) this one is understandable, but, if you want to write code that decrements something, e.g. x--, it renders the -- as horizontal line instead.

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#27

Post by ygra »

aembleton wrote: post #23
AstroJetson wrote: post #18

I use this tool almost every day turning sequence diagrams into drawings. https://www.websequencediagrams.com While the "back of a napkin"style is hip, management seems to prefer cleaner drawings. I'd use shakey, if it made "professional" drawings.

That looks like it's using Dot notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_%28graph_description_langu... I like to use http://www.graphviz.org/ to convert from DOT to PNG.

Uhm, if the only thing you base that assumption on is the use of -> to mark a line with an arrowhead ... sure. But it's pretty far from dot, actually.

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#29

Post by ctstover »

wkz wrote: post #13
storrgie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a great service, but I'd love to have something I can use locally. A _lot_ of my time diagramming is spent disconnected, transitioning over photos of whiteboards to actual diagrams. Are you aware of anything that is a local client?

Have you tried artist-mode in emacs?

asciio has layers, which is orders more powerful

Re: Shaky: ASCII Diagram to PNG

#30

Post by vidarh »

davidjgraph wrote: post #16
dr_zoidberg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the appeal would be that, since it's text based, it's already supported by git/mercurial/svn/name-your-vcs. A binary format would need some sort of history/diff support inside it to work well with a specific plugin for s VCS. An XML-based format would integrate well with a VCS, but you lose the clarity of the ASCII based diagrams. It may seem "cute" or "toyish", but I woudl try to use it before giving an opin…

"since it's text based, it's already supported by git/mercurial/svn/name-your-vcs" But doesn't that still apply if you had a visual tool exporting to ASCII? It'd save you the difficulty of moving sections around in a text editor, but give you the visual diff.

Now you then need to cut and paste back and forth from your documents in order to edit them.
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