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Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

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Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#1

Post by indyjoenz »

I've been working on an ANSI art editor off and on for a while. It works like a traditional ANSI text editor, except it supports 256 colors, Unicode and CP437 encoding, frame-based animation, custom UI themes, terminal mouse input, HTML and IRC color output, and runs in Utf-8 terminals.

It's written in Python and curses, and is fairly portable across Unix systems. If you have ever used TheDraw or Aciddraw, the user interface is similar. It can also load/convert, view, edit and save most CP437 (MS-DOS style) ANSI art in a Utf-8 terminal, so you can view ANSI artscene packs in the comfort of your favorite terminal, and even convert them into 256 color Unicode ANSI.

I've been using it for my own ANSI and ASCII art for a number of years, and hope this will help artists work with less restrictions. I think there is a lot of opportunity for ANSI art beyond its dominant 16-color Code Page 437 format. We all have computers with amazing ANSI terminals with modern features. Shouldn't they be the natural home for making text art?

It's still a work in progress, and I'm always adding features. Thanks for checking it out!

Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals
github.com

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#2

Post by sgbeal »

TheDraw was one of the few pieces of 1990s shareware i purchased, and i have fond memories of it, but i feel compelled to ask: what use is that sort of thing nowadays? Back then we used them to make animations for dial-up BBSes, but the internet has long since obsoleted that. :-?

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#3

Post by indyjoenz »

sgbeal wrote: post #2

TheDraw was one of the few pieces of 1990s shareware i purchased, and i have fond memories of it, but i feel compelled to ask: what use is that sort of thing nowadays? Back then we used them to make animations for dial-up BBSes, but the internet has long since obsoleted that. :-?

Thanks for taking a look. There are a few uses for a program like this in 2024.

1: Some people still make ANSI and ASCII art as a means of exploring the medium.. well, artistically. Check out https://16colo.rs/ and you will see what I mean. They showed around 30 ANSI art packs published for the year 2023. It isn't exactly the heyday of the 90s, but it's not completely dead, either.

2: Some people like to use ASCII art in text user interface programs, in README files, etc. This is probably the real modern use for a program like this.

3: BBSs aren't completely dead, either. :) See: https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ for examples. Most of them cater to the old IBM-PC style character encoding (or some other antiquated platform) and ANSI standards, but I think there is opportunity to have modern 256 color Unicode BBSs. With social media being so problematic in 2024, why not enjoy a tried and true medium? They usually connect over the internet now, of course.

I admit, the commercial applications are limited. It's mostly just good creative or nostalgic fun.

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#4

Post by sgbeal »

indyjoenz wrote: post #3
sgbeal wrote: post #2

TheDraw was one of the few pieces of 1990s shareware i purchased, and i have fond memories of it, but i feel compelled to ask: what use is that sort of thing nowadays? Back then we used them to make animations for dial-up BBSes, but the internet has long since obsoleted that. :-?

Thanks for taking a look. There are a few uses for a program like this in 2024. 1: Some people still make ANSI and ASCII art as a means of exploring the medium.. well, artistically. Check out https://16colo.rs/ and you will see what I mean. They showed around 30 ANSI art packs published for the year 2023. It isn't exactly the heyday of the 90s, but it's not completely dead, either. 2: Some people like to use ASCII ar…

> It's mostly just good creative fun.

The absolute best justification for coding. Thank you for your detailed response.

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#6

Post by indyjoenz »

kid64 wrote: post #5

I've been waiting for something like this. Is animation supported? Any plans for Android support?

Thanks! Yes, animation was one of the earliest features. It uses its own animation engine and file format (which is a gzipped JSON file), which gives the artist fine control over the timing (unlike traditional ansimation files), by giving them frames-per-second speed control and custom delays on frames. There is a video or two on youtube demonstrating this, and you can scroll down on the Durdraw homepage and readme to see examples.

I have given some thought to Android and iOS versions, and would like to make it happen, but it isn't a high priority at the moment. That is interesting that you might be interested in an Android version. Maybe sometime this year.

Edit: Just to be clear, animation does not require any programming or coding. You simply create frames, draw, switch between them, copy and edit frames, etc, like a traditional animation studio.

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#7

Post by indyjoenz »

kid64 wrote: post #5

I've been waiting for something like this. Is animation supported? Any plans for Android support?

I originally started working on Durdraw because I was trying to animate some ASCII art with Pablodraw and Photoshop, and found it incredibly tedious. I ended up making my own editor for any future animations.

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#9

Post by indyjoenz »

okmg wrote: post #8

Very interesting! Does it have a function to convert images to ascii art?

It doesn't. Thanks for the great question. However, I made another program a while back that plays GIFs and images in a text terminal similar to what you're describing (see https://github.com/cmang/gifterm), and I plan to incorporate that functionality into a future version of Durdraw.

Re: Show HN: Durdraw – a modern ANSI art editor for modern Unix terminals

#10

Post by retrac »

indyjoenz wrote: post #3
sgbeal wrote: post #2

TheDraw was one of the few pieces of 1990s shareware i purchased, and i have fond memories of it, but i feel compelled to ask: what use is that sort of thing nowadays? Back then we used them to make animations for dial-up BBSes, but the internet has long since obsoleted that. :-?

Thanks for taking a look. There are a few uses for a program like this in 2024. 1: Some people still make ANSI and ASCII art as a means of exploring the medium.. well, artistically. Check out https://16colo.rs/ and you will see what I mean. They showed around 30 ANSI art packs published for the year 2023. It isn't exactly the heyday of the 90s, but it's not completely dead, either. 2: Some people like to use ASCII ar…

Don't discount #2 there. I still make ASCII art when commenting source code. Flow charts! I like to keep documentation as human-readable and editable text. (Version control friendly.)

ASCII art diagrams can be automatically rendered to an image, too: https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/

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