
Emacs Artist Mode - brudgers
http://www.cinsk.org/emacs/emacs-artist.html
======
an_ko
How far can we take this? What is literate programming at the extreme?

I often draw when I need to work out an algorithm in my head. I wish there
were a way to embed my doodles in code comments. Stuff like circle geometry
are hard to explain without dense pixels. I've tried using various literate
programming pre-processors that let me write comments in Markdown/HTML and
embed whatever, but it makes my UNIX-minimalism-sense freak out, and it's
super awkward having to render my source code to HTML and open a web browser
to be able to read the comments properly…

~~~
brudgers
Emacs org-mode supports a lot of languages [1] and you can mix and match
within a file. Howard Abrams literate devops is an interesting example of what
org-mode code blocks can do. [2][3]

Org-mode also allows embedding images or source blocks in languages like LaTeX
that resolve to rendered images.

[1]: [http://orgmode.org/worg/org-
contrib/babel/languages.html](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-
contrib/babel/languages.html)

[2]: [http://www.howardism.org/](http://www.howardism.org/)

[3]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljNabciEGg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljNabciEGg)

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sachac
I've used artist-mode with my tablet PC, which works surprisingly well. You
can draw with the stylus and everything!

For other ways to produce graphics from text (especially within Emacs), check
out the examples in [http://doc.norang.ca/org-
mode.html#Publishing](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Publishing) : ditaa,
graphviz, plantuml... Cool stuff. =)

~~~
joonoro
+1 for plantuml integration in org-mode. I have a university class teaching
UML and it has been very helpful.

To get the true plantuml "UML IDE" experience, have the exported png open in a
window (in the emacs sense) side-by-side with the code. Enable 'auto-revert-
mode' on the image so that whenever you eval it it gets refreshed. If you run
into problems where the image shows up in binary mode after reverting just
enable 'auto-image-file-mode' (keeps it in image-mode).

You can also make it more "responsive" by setting the auto-revert-mode
interval to something shorter (by default it checks every 5 seconds if the
file has changed). I just defined a new 'fast-auto-revert-mode' function where
it turns the mode on after let-ting the interval be 1 second, then added that
as a hook for 'image-minor-mode-hook'.

------
thom
You can also combine this with picture-mode[1] which gives a little bit more
customisation of characters used. I'm always a bit sad that neither seems to
allow you to achieve an extended ASCII 3D look though, e.g:

    
    
        ┌╖
        ╘╝
    

Otherwise emacs would be a brilliant level-designer for various ASCII RPGs of
my youth.

[1]:
[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Pic...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Picture-
Mode.html)

------
mrmondo
It feels strange that I need to install Adobe Flash Player to watch a
screencast on Emacs.

Wait... is there an Emacs mode for this?

~~~
yenda
I'm surprised people still use it, what is Flash still usefull for ? deploy
malwares ?

~~~
david-given
Homestar Runner.

Also, Orisinal:
[http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal](http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal)

------
kenko
I'm more interested in knowing what was used to toggle in and out of the mode
that made everything but the comment disappear!

~~~
cheez
I love Emacs

~~~
PackageUpgrades
Don't, you may catch something. RSI appears to be going around.

~~~
chetanahuja
Are we doing the flame war thing on Friday night? I mean if we are, I'm up for
it. Are we?

------
endgame
I have used ditaa[1](warning: sourceforge) with artist-mode to mark some
pretty-darn-good-looking system diagrams. It's a pretty impressive piece of
work!

[1] [http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/](http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/)

------
craigching
I couldn't watch the video on my tablet (video is flash), but I found this
youtube video that also talks about artist mode:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIuX87Xo8Fc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIuX87Xo8Fc)

------
wz1000
This reminds me of TempleOS

[https://youtu.be/sm-W4Tzg9-o?t=662](https://youtu.be/sm-W4Tzg9-o?t=662)

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gluelogic
Somewhat off-topic: I have been looking for an ANSI art editor for the
terminal (Linux or OS X).

Anyone know of anything?

~~~
catern
Um... that's what this post is about? artist-mode is an text art editor.

You don't need to use Emacs as an editor to use the "applications" built on
Emacs, if that's your concern. Just as with any new application you'd have to
learn how to use it.

------
bkanber
Does anybody know of a similar vim plugin? I personally love ASCII diagrams,
but there's quite a bit of friction involved in including them in docblocks.

~~~
catern
I'll say what I said in another comment: Isn't it fine to just use Emacs for
this purpose? You don't have to use it as a general-purpose text editor if all
you want to do with it is make ASCII art. Just as with any new thing, you'd
have to learn a bit, but not that much...

------
SZJX
Thought many people already knew it well. A convenient feature of Emacs no
doubt.

