Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely we should. But this one isn't FOSS.
https://github.com/tuanchauict/MonoSketch/blob/main/LICENSE
Why have you sent me the licence page for Monosketch? I'm commenting on comment about Monodraw...
Monosketch
111–120 of 144 posts
Re: Monosketch
#112That circuit schematic in the header is wrong enough to look like an AI-generated hallucination of what a schematic is from the "human with extra fingers" stage of image generation. Inconsistent symbol styles, missing pin labels, a shorted capacitor in the upper-left, etc.
I didn't even notice that the cap was "shorted", instead I noticed that it had the shorter line (traditionally negative) labeled "+" but connected directly to GND!
Re: Monosketch
#113Oh look, another tool to draw ASCII boxes. Just what we needed in 2026. Next someone will tell me we can use AI to generate these too.
Re: Monosketch
#114I use Monodraw[0]. Best purchase I ever made. [0] https://monodraw.helftone.com/
I also use Monodraw, can only recommend with one caveat: @Dear Monodraw developers, if you're reading this, please please please implement discarding text edit popups using ESC, it's been years and I still keep reaching for ESC every time I use Monodraw. I tried decompiling it to binary patch it, but unfortunately it messes up the update mechanism.
Have you tried emailing them? Usually indie developers are quite open to small reasonable suggestions like that.
Re: Monosketch
#115Oh look, another tool to draw ASCII boxes. Just what we needed in 2026. Next someone will tell me we can use AI to generate these too.
Welllll... I gave Opus 4.6 the repository and a sample .mono export and it nailed the file format. There's something to be said about tools and formats that are easy for human-AI end-to-end operation.
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ New post hits Show HN: │
│ "MonoSketch — Draw ASCII Diagrams" │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
│
│
╭───────────────▼──────────────╮
┌┤ Did you read the article? │─────┐
│╰──────────────────────────────╯ │
No│ Yes │
│ │
│ │
┌────────────▼───────────┐ ┌────────────▼───────────┐
│ Skip straight │ │ Hmm, this is │
│ to the comments │ │ actually kind of cool │
└────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────┘
│ │
│ │
┌────────────▼───────────┐ ┌────────────▼───────────┐
│ Adopt the hottest │ │ Could I build this │
│ take as your own │ │ myself in a weekend? │
└────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
│ │ (alway│ yes)
┌──┘ └────┐ │
┌───────▼──────┐ ┌───────▼──────┐ │
│ "Just use │ │"I built this │ ┌────────────▼───────────┐
│ Vim + sed" │ │ in 1997" │ │ Start rewriting │
└──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ it in Rust, obviously │
│ │ └────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
└───────┬─────────┘ │
┌────────────▼───────────┐ ┌────────────▼───────────┐
│ Post with mass │ │ Abandon project after │
│ confidence │ │ exactly 2 hours │
└────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────┘
│ │
│ │
│ ┌────────────▼───────────┐
│ │ Star the repo on │
│ │ GitHub anyway │
│ └────────────────────────┘
│ │
│ │
└────────────────┬────────────────────┘
┌────────────────────────▼───────────────────────┐
│ Refresh HN every 45 minutes │
│ to check your comment karma │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
│
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Repeat tomorrow with a ┃
┃ completely different tool ┃
┃ ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛Re: Monosketch
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also use Monodraw, can only recommend with one caveat: @Dear Monodraw developers, if you're reading this, please please please implement discarding text edit popups using ESC, it's been years and I still keep reaching for ESC every time I use Monodraw. I tried decompiling it to binary patch it, but unfortunately it messes up the update mechanism.
Have you tried emailing them? Usually indie developers are quite open to small reasonable suggestions like that.
I’ve implemented that feature but I haven’t had the time to push out a new update (family life and day job take up all my time).
I’ll try to prioritise this over the next few weeks.
Thanks for all the kind words to everyone who likes Monodraw.
(Developer of Monodraw)
Re: Monosketch
#117There's graph-easy, which generates ascii by default but can also do box chars, and even SVG and png, as well as generating graphviz and other output.
It is not WYSIWIG---you feed it a description of a diagram:
echo "[ Berlin ] -- train --> [ Bonn ] [ Bonn ] --> [ Berlin ]" | graph-easy -as boxart ┌───────────────────┐
∨ │
┌────────┐ train ┌──────┐
│ Berlin │ ───────> │ Bonn │
└────────┘ └──────┘
Re: Monosketch
#118What is the purpose of ASCII diagramming today? Seems like graphics are supported by every document and communications medium that I use. Is it for including directly in code?
My unpopular opinion is that programming is stuck in the 1970s: a lot of programmers use a 1970s-style terminal window to enter 1970s OS commands, which run on a 1970s processor architecture (which is slowly getting replaced by a 1980s architecture). They use a 1970s editor (which is much superior to the other 1970s editor) to write programs in a 1970s language. ASCII diagrams are just a symptom of this. Hardware is…
Because we are yet to invent a more efficient data transformation system as a shell, or a more efficient text editing interface as vi, but its not like there is no innovation in the space, we have `jq` now.
Re: Monosketch
#119What is the purpose of ASCII diagramming today? Seems like graphics are supported by every document and communications medium that I use. Is it for including directly in code?
My unpopular opinion is that programming is stuck in the 1970s: a lot of programmers use a 1970s-style terminal window to enter 1970s OS commands, which run on a 1970s processor architecture (which is slowly getting replaced by a 1980s architecture). They use a 1970s editor (which is much superior to the other 1970s editor) to write programs in a 1970s language. ASCII diagrams are just a symptom of this. Hardware is…
And yet here we are communicating over a network from the 1970s.
Re: Monosketch
#120This is really neat. I just added beautiful-mermaid [0] support to Orange Juice [1] because there is no way to display images on this site, even from an extension (due to their aggressive CSP lockouts). But I can render text->SVG and mermaid doesn't look awful just typed out, but anyone who has the extension installed is leveled up. Is there something like this running as a library that I can also add? [0] https://gi…
flowchart TD
%% Power Side (240V)
subgraph Power Circuit (240V)
Breaker["240V Breaker / GFCI"]
Fuses["Fuse Block"]
Contactor["4-Pole Contactor"]
Pump1["Pump 1 (240V)"]
Pump2["Pump 2 (240V)"]
Breaker --> Fuses
Fuses --> Contactor
Contactor --> Pump1
Contactor --> Pump2
end
%% Control Side (120V)
subgraph Control Circuit (120V)
Hot120["120V Control Hot (tap)"]
AirButton["Spa Air Button"]
AirSwitch["Air Switch"]
Coil["Contactor Coil (A1/A2)"]
Hot120 --> AirSwitch
AirButton -. air tube .-> AirSwitch
AirSwitch --> Coil
end
%% Mechanical Link
Coil -. magnetic pull .-> Contactor