[HN Gopher] Monodraw: ASCII art editor for the Mac
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Monodraw: ASCII art editor for the Mac
Author : keehun
Score : 240 points
Date : 2021-07-14 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (monodraw.helftone.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (monodraw.helftone.com)
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| ASCIIFlow is a less full featured web app with similar
| functionality to Monodraw, for all the windows/linux/chromebook
| users wishing for an electron version
|
| https://asciiflow.com
| alanwreath wrote:
| I was looking to see if this had been mentioned yet. As a
| Monodraw owner who recently has been forced to only use a
| Windows laptop for work I was pleasantly surprised a couple
| months ago by another article on hacker news that referenced
| this great web app. Just so happened in the comments here I
| also learned about Moebius which I also want to try out.
| georgestephanis wrote:
| Literally just came here to link to asciiflow. It's great!
| oneweekwonder wrote:
| While Monodraw seems to have business related features I feel the
| need to mention "Moebius ANSI Art Editor"[0] a cross platform
| open source alternative.
|
| Moebius is a new ANSI and ASCII Editor for MacOS, Windows, and
| Linux.
|
| With a neat Moebius Server feature that allows collaboration by
| multiple users on the same canvas through a server instance.
|
| [0]: https://blocktronics.github.io/moebius/
| themodelplumber wrote:
| That's pretty neat. I didn't realize 16 Colors uses the server
| feature. https://16colo.rs/servers/
| typon wrote:
| This has like...none of the features of Monodraw? Drawings
| aren't objects - this is just a canvas. This is not an
| alternative to Monodraw - but an ASCII painting app.
| app4soft wrote:
| > _a cross platform_
|
| Not a cross-platform, but JavaScript-extension with cross-
| platform Chromium browser bundled.
| keithnz wrote:
| I've always liked ascii flow https://asciiflow.com
|
| But actually more often I've needed things like
| https://github.com/weidagang/text-diagram as it is much easier to
| maintain
|
| But I actually need more types of diagrams, so slowly, as one of
| many little side projects, I've been building a little library
| for all kinds of ascii diagram generation
| pornel wrote:
| This could have been OmniGraffle's April Fools'.
| Jubed wrote:
| Well done, This is amazing app.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Can it use other Unicode character drawing glyphs? We now have
| PETSCII, ATASCII, 2x3 mosaics...
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| FYI, Emacs bundles w/ the package `artist-mode` that seems to
| have equivalent functionality, you can even draw w/ the mouse.
|
| Demo:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDbi56U5qRw&ab_channel=gnuma...
| ntrz wrote:
| What's the purpose of being able to embed an image in the sheet?
| Is it intended to be an aid to `tracing' an image when creating
| ASCII art, or does it have some other purpose?
| ezekg wrote:
| I've used images scattered around the art board for reference.
| I like to copy brandur's diagrams a lot, so I'll usually have a
| couple of his on my board to reference.
| ynac wrote:
| Long-time user here. Laying out newsletters, flow charts,
| diagrams, and figlets. It has very few issues these days, and
| only a couple minor points of frustration in the UI. For my
| purposes, it's the best thing out there.
|
| A couple of workflow tips for using Monodraw:
|
| * Open a few docs in Monodraw at a time and leave them open for
| your different needs: text boxes, figlets, diagrams. Each with a
| few elements already waiting to be filled, cut & pasted, etc.
|
| * For larger docs (e.g. newsletters) finish the writing in your
| text editor and bring it into Monodraw. Think Publisher or
| InDesign. Yeah, you can edit in here, but it's weird. Best for
| layout.
|
| * Browse the sample file that opens by default when you load
| Monodraw. Good fodder in there.
|
| * Snippets!
|
| * Yes, it is just text but there is FILL to give order (front to
| back) of elements. This is really handy for making slides that
| expose a list one item at a time.
|
| * Cut and Paste chunks in and out of your Monodraw file with your
| main document or take a clipped screen capture for dropping into
| a graphic or fancy format document (e.g. Illustrator). No need to
| export and paste.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| That's cool that you use it in these ways. Do you have any
| example newsletters or flowcharts we can look at?
| jibbers wrote:
| What an amazingly polished app! It's refreshing to see a new app
| feel perfectly at home on macOS. $10 to support these folks is
| worth it.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| This app is not new...I have used Monodraw for as long as I can
| remember.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I wonder if it's old enough to compile against GNUStep...
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| FWIW, this looks like a follow up to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831789 ( _Svgbob - Create
| a graphical representation of text diagrams_ )
|
| Some past threads:
|
| _Show HN: Monodraw, an ASCII Art Editor for Mac_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9545252 - May 2015 (53
| comments)
|
| _Monodraw: Powerful ASCII Art Editor for Developers (Mac)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145945 - March 2015 (3
| comments)
|
| _Show HN: Monodraw for Mac, ASCII Art Editor - Beta Available_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9138039 - March 2015 (11
| comments)
|
| _ASCII art editor designed for the Mac_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8445087 - Oct 2014 (107
| comments)
| [deleted]
| sureglymop wrote:
| Looks absolutely amazing.. I wish there was a Linux version.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| This really is excellent. I can see a lot more sequence diagrams
| and illustrations getting into my code comments in future. Well
| worth $10.
| eliseumds wrote:
| What a relief it is to see a snappy, lightweight native app.
| patorjk wrote:
| This looks pretty cool, though unfortunately I'm not near my Mac
| so I can't really check it out. I'd be interested to know how its
| freehand pencil tool compares to JavE's (http://www.jave.de/). I
| always thought that was the coolest feature of JavE.
| milen wrote:
| I'm the author of Monodraw, happy to answer any questions.
| typon wrote:
| Monodraw is always a delight to use. People like you make me
| think that software engineering still has some hope :)
| themodelplumber wrote:
| What are some specific things people have done with your
| software that surprised you, or made you feel proud of what
| you've created?
| anthk wrote:
| Similar:
|
| git://bitreich.org/gramscii
| Foomf wrote:
| This looks really cool, and I'd totally buy this if it had a
| windows version. I don't a mac, nor do I really want one.
| hollasch wrote:
| If you're interested in this, I'd encourage you to look at
| MarkDeep (https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/).
|
| This allows you to write Markdown-style documents, including
| ASCII-art diagrams, but which render beautifully in any browser
| with JavaScript. Using Monodraw or ASCIIFlow as the front-end
| editor, you can drop most results in a Markdeep document. Bonus:
| good inline math typesetting plus loads of other awesome document
| features.
| jshier wrote:
| Unfortunately in minimal maintenance mode for the last 3 years.
| https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-maintenance-mode/
|
| Still works well though.
| Corun wrote:
| In reality it is still maintained though I think. They released
| an update to bring native Apple Silicon support for example:
| https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-v1.5-apple-silicon-macos-...
| mortenjorck wrote:
| The post even mentions a Big Sur / Monterey visual refresh
| currently in development. As "maintenance mode" projects go,
| this looks like the best of the best.
| dfinninger wrote:
| Looks like they've released Dark Mode support and Apple Silicon
| support since that blog post. So maintenance does actually mean
| maintenance.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| An implicit assumption in software seems to be that for it to
| stay relevant, it must be perpetually evolving. But there is
| something to be said for deciding a piece of software has
| reached it's intended potential and simply maintaining it.
|
| Granted, it sounds like the author feels like there are more
| meaningful things to add or change, but that doesn't mean the
| software is any less relevant than it was 3 years back.
| trusz wrote:
| I have a small tutorial on how to create kind of responsive
| elements in Monodraw: https://trusz.github.io/posts/monodraw-
| tips-anchors/
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This looks really cool. Well done! And no electron. Will
| definitely try it out
| ajford wrote:
| I get the hate that Electron gets for it's weight and overhead,
| but this is a perfect example of why Electron has value.
|
| This app has no dependency on native OS for anything beyond
| writing data. It doesn't need to compile heavy code bases, it
| doesn't need fast GPU or other access. It could have very well
| been an electron app, and it would have the benefit of being
| widely available on many platforms.
|
| I'd love to be able to use this app, but as a Linux and Windows
| user, I'm unable to. So I'll be searching for an alternative
| that runs on the platforms I have access to.
|
| That said, no hate on the author for building the tool to their
| needs and desires. It's a fantastic looking app, and looks well
| executed. Wish I could use it.
| JaggerJo wrote:
| It would not be possible to do this in electron.
|
| To have the same great native feeling UI you'd need to use
| AppKit - not HTML.
|
| Don't get me started at the usual shortcuts and general
| platform behavior most electron apps get wrong.
| ajford wrote:
| I'd be interested to hear as to why you couldn't achieve
| the functionality of this app in Electron.
|
| I agree with you that it's almost impossible to get a
| native UI feel in electron, but that's not always the first
| priority.
|
| If the end goal of the application is to present a custom
| interface for drawing on a monospace grid for ASCII art,
| I'm not sure I see the argument that a native UI is
| necessary over any cross-platform kit like QT or even an
| html based UI. I totally agree on shortcuts being a
| problem. Dealing with those cross-platform can be a
| headache when sufficient care is not being taken.
| Especially from an outsider to the platform.
|
| As a long-time linux user, most of the interactions on OSX
| feel wrong to me, but I know it's me that's the problem. If
| I were to write shortcuts for the OSX platform, I'm sure
| I'd get most of them wrong. Conversely, if an OSX developer
| was writing shortcuts for a linux or windows platform, I'm
| sure they'd face the same issue. It really benefits to have
| a platform expert you can consult for testing.
|
| I'm not trying to eschew the need and benefits of native
| apps here, I was trying to point out the fact that the
| large amount of hate for Electron (and similar web UI on
| desktop solutions) have their place.
|
| Heck, this entire app could have been a web app. I'm sure a
| few out there exist to do very similar things.
|
| There's dozens of ways to accomplish things in the
| wonderful field that is software development, and the whole
| "this tech is bad" cargo-cult is more a disservice than
| anything. There are pros and cons to every decision that
| goes into an application, and taking a stance against one
| method without considering the use cases and how it could
| benefit or hinder runs the risk of loosing out on promising
| tech or excluding people from using your project.
|
| I've seen Monodraw a few times over the years, and I've
| lamented the fact that I haven't been able to use it, which
| is what drew me to make my original comment.
| robertoandred wrote:
| One example: native document-based Mac apps have file
| handling functionality in the window's titlebar (rename,
| move, tag, etc). It's very convenient. Electron apps
| don't.
|
| Another: native Mac apps by default reopen where you left
| off. Open windows, open documents, etc. Electron doesn't
| get this functionality automatically; you could spend
| time recreating it, but it still would integrate with
| native settings.
|
| Another small example: native Mac UI controls reflect the
| system-wide accent color the user's selected. With
| Electron, you'd have to either spend time rebuilding the
| functionality or omit it.
|
| Mac users like Macs because Macs work like Macs. Electron
| apps ignore the benefits and features Mac apps usually
| get automatically and just revert to the lowest common
| denominator.
| ajford wrote:
| That's less of why the app couldn't be written in
| Electron and more of why Mac users wouldn't like an
| Electron app.
|
| Perfectly valid reason why someone would want to write
| their app as a native app though, and I appreciate that.
|
| Some of those are definitely things Electron gets wrong
| and should correct. Handling system-wide accent colors is
| exactly the kind of thing my UI kit (Electron in this
| argument) should be handling and not forcing everyone to
| re-invent.
|
| I've never used or even heard of the titlebar file
| handling functionality and had to search that right now.
| This is exactly the kind of thing I've said about
| discoverability. I used OSX for three years daily, and
| I've been using it on and off as needed since around
| 2010. Some things that people love and use all the time
| are just not obvious to everyone.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's totally possible to do this in Electron. I've used
| plenty of Electron apps that were simply ripped off MacOS
| and dumped on Linux (Kitematic, for example). The _entire
| Mac-native UI_ works perfectly fine on Linux, the only
| issue I ran into involved some Mac-ified ini files.
| Zababa wrote:
| The insistance on native feeling UI and shortcuts is
| something I only see from Mac users. I think the app would
| work perfectly well in Electron but would just attract the
| usual complaints from Mac users.
| bromuro wrote:
| An Electron app always requires extra muscle memory.
| Every Electron app is different from the other, they all
| miss the UI consistency that makes the Mac so productive
| to use.
| haswell wrote:
| One potential conclusion: Mac users understand the
| productivity increase and the value of apps feeling
| native, since the Apple ecosystem is one of the primary
| places to get such a native experience today.
|
| This shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "Mac users
| are special flowers", but rather, "Mac users may have
| stronger opinions about this because they've experienced
| the benefits of native apps".
|
| I've been around the block with operating systems, and
| was primarily a Linux user for many years. Later in my
| career, I started to appreciate the simplicity and
| consistency of the Apple ecosystem, and while I recognize
| that's not everyone's thing, it lets me focus on the job
| at hand and spend less time learning how to use new
| apps/tools. This is valuable.
| Zababa wrote:
| That's a great conclusion. Sadly the way it's usually
| felt is through entitlement. I can't count the number of
| time where I've seen an electron/Flutter/anything app
| presented, and Mac users are once again asking for a
| native app while pretending to not understand why the app
| is cross platform in the first place.
|
| If they're so attached to native apps, maybe they should
| build a website/community where people ready to pay more
| for native apps can say they want for example a native
| client for slack, discord, spotify, and then the
| companies can see if it's viable or not.
|
| My problem is that these complaints are exactly like "the
| back button is broken", it doesn't bring anything new or
| interesting to talk about, people never propose to help a
| project or to pay money for new features, they just
| complain and never stop. This isn't good content for
| Hacker News in general.
| ajford wrote:
| Another take on it is that Mac decided to go a different
| path on a few different UI things in the past, and that
| has persisted to this day.
|
| Look at how *nix, Windows, Sun, BSD, Chrome OS (which is
| basically a linux anyways) all use Ctrl, Meta (alt), and
| Shift for their hotkeys, compared to how Mac uses Hyper
| (cmd).
|
| Also look at how Mac has one instance of an app's tool
| bar/menu that all windows share.
|
| I'll agree that the consistent UI is a boon, but there's
| a large lack of discoverability imo, and some things that
| are just entirely lacking, like the ability to move
| windows around with hotkeys.
| npunt wrote:
| You've got the order reversed. Mac pretty much defined
| the modern WIMP UI and was the only real game in town for
| consumers & professionals from 1984 - 1990 when Windows 3
| was released, and during this time an entire industry
| (DTP) was built atop Mac's strong UI foundations.
|
| It's more accurate to say that in modern UIs the others
| decided to each go their own different paths and
| replicate part of what made the MacOS experience special,
| but they also tended to forget to include a lot of the
| little details that made it great, and have never had the
| same dedication to consistency.
|
| Re: discoverability, there's an order to discovering
| advanced options in MacOS - hold Option and click on
| menus. You'll be surprised how far that gets you. The
| whole idea of MacOS and native apps is you learn how to
| use the system once, and you're rewarded from thereon
| out. Not all things are discoverable without these keys
| because not all things are relevant for everyday uses and
| can add clutter - its a design choice to make simple
| things easy and hard things possible. They're not always
| perfect but they're still the best game in town.
|
| RE: moving windows with hotkeys, just get an app like
| Magnet, problem solved.
| p_l wrote:
| Because some of us are shut down with responses of "be
| happy you got this app at all" (Linux users) or somehow
| get ignored when we speak up (Windows users - though I
| guess Windows hw often having more cpu power and memory
| leads to less complaints?)
| echelon wrote:
| And think about how much more work it was. And how much more
| work it'll take to maintain and update.
|
| It's an interesting choice to do native.
|
| That said, very impressive work.
| jamil7 wrote:
| > And think about how much more work it was. And how much
| more work it'll take to maintain and update.
|
| This isn't really true when supporting a single platform,
| assuming the author is fluent in AppKit etc.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| AppKit apps also don't usually break that easily. It's
| surprisingly simple to get an abandoned OS X 10.0-10.4
| era Cocoa app compiling and running on modern macOS, I've
| done it a couple times just for kicks.
| gorkish wrote:
| Given the rapid development and maturity of virtualization,
| container, sandboxing, and emulation technology: to me it
| seems rather silly that it's not yet trivial to run macos and
| windows apps (and anything else one would want)
| transparently, side by side on the same machine. I'm not
| normally a microsoft fan, but their direction with
| WSL2/WSLg/WSA feels very interesting...
| calvin_ wrote:
| I think you underestimate a lot of the APIs for a platform
| and how they influence an app; Cocoa provides a _lot_ for an
| application; for example, it can provide a lot of the
| structure for a document related app in terms of i.e undo
| /redo, window management, etc.
| nih0 wrote:
| I like seeing devs embrace native frameworks. Electron apps
| just do UI so differently that its just a pain to use. For
| example dragging a file tab out of vs code doesnt create a
| new window like every other editor.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Just because it's not implemented yet doesn't mean it can't
| be implemented. Electron can do anything a native app can
| because it is a native app itself.
|
| Anyway, you can do it without dragging which is actually
| even better. Just do Ctrl+K, O or on a Mac Cmd+K, O.
|
| You can track when this feature is implemented here -
| https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/8171
| egypturnash wrote:
| "you can do this thing in a completely different way than
| the native OS trains you to expect to do it, actually
| this is even better!"
| wayneftw wrote:
| Pfffft. Yeah, imagine using the mouse more than the
| keyboard for a coding tool though?
| egypturnash wrote:
| it's an _art program_ ffs
| wayneftw wrote:
| No, VS Code is a coding tool.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| This is why Qt or Flutter are interesting.
| bromuro wrote:
| Get a Mac :) I would have not bought this app if it was not
| native. I love using it because the look and feel. I value
| this kind of beauty, call me a weirdo...
| ajford wrote:
| Lol. Had one for almost 3 years. Not interested in going
| back. I personally prefer my Linux laptop and home lab,
| with my Windows desktop for all things gaming and 3d CAD
| related.
|
| I appreciate the vertical integration Apple has in all its
| products, but after feeling like I was fighting the system
| for almost 3 years, I was happy to no longer have to use it
| for my work machine.
|
| To each there own though! I'm glad you enjoy it, and I'm
| glad to see Monodraw get the attention it deserves (it's
| genuinely a very cool app).
| noxa wrote:
| I somewhat understand the hate for electron but as a non-Mac
| user I'd much rather have access to this app - and I suspect
| the author would rather have me pay them for it. For such niche
| software it seems silly to build it so platform specific.
| heyoni wrote:
| To get that kind of native feel in an electron app is either
| impossible or going to take a lot more work than just using
| native SDK's. There's a reason people hate on electron,
| because it's a bloated alternative that merely comes close to
| having a native feel.
| jamil7 wrote:
| > And no electron.
|
| I bought this app years ago - I have a feeling it might even
| predate electron?
|
| It's awesome for embedding simple diagrams.
| sigzero wrote:
| Same here. I like it.
| avinassh wrote:
| I learned about Monodraw from Thorsten Ball's interpreter /
| compiler books. The book has really beautiful illustrations and
| ASCII drawings, when I asked the author they directed me to
| Monodraw
|
| Here is a sample chapter from the book (in PDF) -
| https://compilerbook.com/sample.pdf
| misternugget wrote:
| Ha! I was going to comment in here that I used Monodraw for the
| book and really fell in love with the tool.
|
| What I did more recently is to use Monodraw to create diagrams
| of CFGs and put those next to the test cases (see [0] or [1])
| which exercise those graphs - the power of ASCII, you can just
| copy the graphs into your code.
|
| [0]:
| https://twitter.com/thorstenball/status/1363053307409932288
| [1]:
| https://twitter.com/thorstenball/status/1368802505963016197
| stevenpetryk wrote:
| Remember, when embedding ASCII art in HTML, hide it from
| screenreaders and provide alt text. Otherwise it's an
| incomprehensible mess of seemingly random characters.
| webwielder2 wrote:
| This is why I love the Mac. Even obscure apps have a beautiful
| interface and easy to use web site. I know this is incendiary,
| but I must say it: on Windows, this app's site would have seven
| giant, fake download buttons, the actual download would play an
| ad, and the app would look like something from a fever dream.
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| No osx apps don't look good, they just look uniform and cookie
| cutter. Walled gardens aren't great
| themodelplumber wrote:
| There was a windows compatible app posted here and I can't see
| ads or fakery. I do see the fever dream aspect, but you have to
| concede that we are talking about ANSI art here. Which is
| basically fever dream art in a lot of cases.
| [deleted]
| rbanffy wrote:
| I need this so much... I have to use Lucid Charts in
| Confluence...
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(page generated 2021-07-14 23:00 UTC)