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Monodraw

monodraw.helftone.com

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Re: Monodraw

#71

Post by lsllc »

milen wrote: post #50
lsllc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please not more app-store abandonware. I have a decent amount on both my phone and my MBP. Sad to see, I really liked Monodraw for creating ASCII illustrations for source code (e.g. buffer layouts etc). Of course, probably it'll be ok for a while, but then some App Store API or updated processor requirements will render it unusable like so many others (particularly on iOS). So now I've got several abandonware apps th…

> EDIT : Happy to see Milen's sibling comment about fixing breakage!! I realize you have to make a living -- is there a way to contribute for these new features (or is it a totally new app -- which is fine!). I've considered the idea of letting other developers have access to the source code and help with the development. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure a way to make it fair - e.g., if someone starts contributing, d…

Thank you for the comment, apologies if I came off a bit antagonistic! It's just a little frustrating when you see really great apps potentially ending.

It's really too bad there's not a better indie-dev model for the App Store, if I am buying an app (I think maybe I maybe paid $19 for Monodraw -- totally worth it btw), am I buying the app as-is? or do I get updates ... if so how long should I expect to get them and are the updates minor fixes or bigger whizbang features.

I can see that once an app gets to a steady state, there's probably diminishing returns in putting a lot of effort into new features esp. if your market is small. On the other hand, if the app has some sort of subscription, now there is an expectation for updates (not unreasonable, but possibly the numbers might not work for the developer).

I think Pixelmoter sort of got this right, although they did release a Pro version separately (which I also bought). However, I suspect they're a much larger company and probably have quite a large market share and can afford to continue to release updates to keep it fresh (and for someone like me, the app is exactly what I need vs. say photoshop and the price point is reasonable).

Re: Monodraw

#72

Post by diggan »

jvanderbot wrote: post #53
seer wrote: post #43

OMG this is one of my favorite tools paid for it all the way back when it went out. Have used it so many times just to write documentation for things like: https://github.com/ivank/potygen/blob/main/packages/potygen/... ASCII is just so versatile and allows you to put nice graphics in places where one does not expect, making things more easily understandable.

You should select the lines you'd like to show off and link that.

You should do a quick scan of the file, it's filled with graphs in the comments, not just one.

Re: Monodraw

#73

Post by diggan »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #48
seer wrote: post #43

OMG this is one of my favorite tools paid for it all the way back when it went out. Have used it so many times just to write documentation for things like: https://github.com/ivank/potygen/blob/main/packages/potygen/... ASCII is just so versatile and allows you to put nice graphics in places where one does not expect, making things more easily understandable.

Those corners look like Unicode block chars.

ASCII means more than just characters from the ASCII character standard today, for better or worse. The "modern" translation would be something like "text".

I don't agree or disagree with it, so don't argue with me, just trying to explain how people use it today.

Re: Monodraw

#74

Post by lumb63 »

milen wrote: post #29
andai wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thanks to being proprietary, no one else can devote time to it, either.

I’ve toyed with the idea of open sourcing the product. I reached the conclusion that it’s not the approach for two main reasons: - I believe in a strong, centralised product vision and execution - The code will be packaged up and sold by unscrupulous people who will not contribute back I’m a strong advocate of interoperability and open data formats. The Monodraw data format is not proprietary and I do have plans for…

I understand your concerns about open-sourcing the codebase and won’t try to convince you otherwise. It’s your code.

That said, I would like to share my perspective on the subject, having given some thought to if/how I should open source my code. I don’t feel that I have any ground to stand on if I were to choose not to open source my code. That same code would be uploaded to the internet using a web browser or other tool that is open source. That code is probably compiled or interpreted by a tool that’s open source. For me, it all runs on an operating system that’s open source. Nearly everything that I am able to do as a software developer is built on the shoulders of giants who, out of kindness and conviction in their beliefs, chose to make an entire ecosystem of software available to the world, with source code available, free of charge. I feel that I owe it to the world to pay that legacy forward.

Re: Monodraw

#75

Post by James_K »

subjectsigma wrote: post #39
James_K wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you used an ASCII drawing tool to draw these diagrams in text then took a screenshot of them and uploaded to your website? That seems like such a convoluted way to draw a few rectangles. Isn't there an easier way?

1. You can just “Save as” to PNG, it takes no time or effort. 2. I use to use Monodraw exclusively for making diagrams in source code, but over time I’ve become so comfortable with the tool, keyboard shortcuts, etc. that now I just use it for all diagrams. It’s a very nice tool.

If you feel the need to embed giant ASCII diagrams into a source file, I think you should just use a picture. Like a .png or .svg or something and write the documentation in another file. Or even maybe try out rich text source code.

Re: Monodraw

#76

Post by Retr0id »

russellendicott wrote: post #64
paulirish wrote: post #41

Looks nice. https://asciiflow.com/ is a web-based alternative that's been my go-to for a decade.

I use ASCIIFlow all the time. I still haven't figured out how to get browsers to render the monospace fonts correctly see example diagram on this page: http://uggly.bytester.net/#how-it-works

Looks fine on my machine - my guess is that your primary font does not contain all the glyphs used (e.g. the box-drawing chars), so its falling back to another font just for those glyphs, causing inconsistencies.

Re: Monodraw

#77

Post by mixmastamyk »

diggan wrote: post #73
mixmastamyk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those corners look like Unicode block chars.

ASCII means more than just characters from the ASCII character standard today, for better or worse. The "modern" translation would be something like "text". I don't agree or disagree with it, so don't argue with me, just trying to explain how people use it today.

Anyone can write that a word no longer has its defined meaning. That can’t even be refuted, as it’s certain someone is confused somewhere.

However, ASCII is not a random ancient word, it’s a ratified standard. Would be like calling any datetime format “ISO8601”.

Re: Monodraw

#78

Post by aidenn0 »

James_K wrote: post #75
subjectsigma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You can just “Save as” to PNG, it takes no time or effort. 2. I use to use Monodraw exclusively for making diagrams in source code, but over time I’ve become so comfortable with the tool, keyboard shortcuts, etc. that now I just use it for all diagrams. It’s a very nice tool.

If you feel the need to embed giant ASCII diagrams into a source file, I think you should just use a picture. Like a .png or .svg or something and write the documentation in another file. Or even maybe try out rich text source code.

Please don't do things like this that make it harder for people to read your comments.

Re: Monodraw

#79

Post by misnome »

James_K wrote: post #75
subjectsigma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You can just “Save as” to PNG, it takes no time or effort. 2. I use to use Monodraw exclusively for making diagrams in source code, but over time I’ve become so comfortable with the tool, keyboard shortcuts, etc. that now I just use it for all diagrams. It’s a very nice tool.

If you feel the need to embed giant ASCII diagrams into a source file, I think you should just use a picture. Like a .png or .svg or something and write the documentation in another file. Or even maybe try out rich text source code.

Thanks! I’m sure they never thought of that!

Or maybe they did, and there are advantages and tradeoffs to any approach.

I’m sure your unique insight must be right, though.

Re: Monodraw

#80

Post by Terretta »

James_K wrote: post #19
sebastianconcpt wrote: post #12

I love this tool! I've used it to do diagrams for Mapless: https://sebastianconcept.github.io/Mapless/guides/2024/01/28... And to document this Pharo VM Plugin builder setup: https://github.com/sebastianconcept/PharoPluginBuilder

So you used an ASCII drawing tool to draw these diagrams in text then took a screenshot of them and uploaded to your website? That seems like such a convoluted way to draw a few rectangles. Isn't there an easier way?

At least for the README, the diagram remains text in three backticks.
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