
Ditaa: Diagrams Through ASCII Art - archielc
http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/
======
wernsey
It is now on GitHub:
[https://github.com/stathissideris/ditaa](https://github.com/stathissideris/ditaa)

I've recently used this for a diagram of a FSM in software I'm developing at
work.

I drew the diagrams on [http://www.asciidraw.com](http://www.asciidraw.com).
The diagram ends up as a comment in my source code. This has a couple of
benefits: It is easy to keep up to date (I change it if I change the code),
and it is under version control (so if I check out a particular branch, I
don't have to struggle to find the relevant diagram). It is also not
significantly more difficult to do than, say, Visio for a simple diagram like
this.

I then used Ditaa to convert the diagram to an image file for more official
documentation, like emails to customers etc.

emacs also has a mode for drawing ASCII diagrams, but I'm on Windows, so I
can't comment about it.

([http://asciiflow.com/](http://asciiflow.com/) seems like a nice alternative
to asciidraw.com, but asciidraw is the one I started out with)

edit: there is also
[http://shaky.github.bushong.net/](http://shaky.github.bushong.net/) that I
use to entertain people who's seen the ditaa generated diagram.

------
dang
Thread from 2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11098653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11098653)

2011:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3204006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3204006)

2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1991078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1991078)

2009:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=800029](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=800029)

~~~
cryptonector
Re
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11105290)

I think this, combined with JavE and/or $EDITOR for $EDITOR in {emacs, vim},
is in fact easy to use. I've written many ASCII diagrams in vim and JavE
before -- it's quite easy. The main advantage of writing ASCII diagrams first
is that a) they work over email really well, b) they're great for IETF
Internet-Drafts and RFCs.

~~~
tempguy9999
> The main advantage of writing ASCII diagrams first is that a) they work over
> email really well

FYI there is an ancient format for bitmap-in-email this, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm_format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm_format)

LibreOffice recognises it, incredibly. I've not tested it out in any mail
client. I doubt it's supported, but it does exist as a spec.

(FYI and totally irrelevant I originally came across it here
[http://underhanded-c.org/_page_id_17.html](http://underhanded-c.org/_page_id_17.html))

------
cr0sh
Something that I was looking for recently, but didn't find, was a set of ASCII
art "glyphs" for rendering electronic schematics.

I am not sure that there exists any kind of library for this, and what I have
seen of such schematics (from various text files and other forms), there isn't
any "one true way" to represent "standard" parts in both vertical and
horizontal orientations (for some parts, it would be nearly impossible, if the
goal was to represent the actual symbol using ASCII characters). Most parts
are most amenable to horizontal representation only. Fortunately, many
schematics can be created in such a manner.

------
vincent-toups
Last time I saw something cool hosted on sourceforge, I was so shocked I fell
off my dinosaur and broke my stone underwear.

~~~
mankeysee
Wear animal skin underwear

