[HN Gopher] figlet - a program for making large letters out of o...
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       figlet - a program for making large letters out of ordinary text
        
       Author : pmoriarty
       Score  : 103 points
       Date   : 2022-05-25 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.figlet.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.figlet.org)
        
       | milen wrote:
       | If you have a Mac, Monodraw [1] includes figlet - just select a
       | Font from the rect/text tool. It also supports custom/additional
       | figlet fonts.
       | 
       | [1] https://monodraw.helftone.com
        
       | silax wrote:
       | Nice. I've used this for years. I love self-descriptive code so I
       | use a `flowerbox` and `flowerpot` bash script daily, with
       | flowerpot being just an alias of figlet.
        
       | m463 wrote:
       | I've use figlet, then later toilet for readable log messages.
       | apt-get install toilet              toilet --filter border --font
       | future compile starting
        
       | mdtrooper wrote:
       | Two useful links:
       | 
       | - http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/toilet : a figlet with vitamints
       | 
       | - https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts : more fonts for figlet
       | and toilet.
        
         | syoc wrote:
         | > TOIlet is in its very early development phase.
         | 
         | Hrrmm, seems like last release was more than 10 years ago.
        
         | schroeding wrote:
         | > http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/toilet
         | 
         | Amazing logos / mascots. I love the whole site :D
        
       | dbacar wrote:
       | i was using this tool with watch to see some headline metrics :)
        
       | Jaruzel wrote:
       | # figlet $HOSTNAME > /etc/motd
       | 
       | On every box I own.
        
         | salzig wrote:
         | + #-CPU-Core + RAM Size. That's me. :)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | cubes wrote:
       | Love Figlet, we used to use it frequently on the shared unix
       | machine where members of the Berkeley Computer Science
       | Undergraduate Association (CSUA) would hang out:
       | https://www.csua.berkeley.edu/
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | It makes more sense if you mention that on soda, /etc/motd was
         | used as a threaded forum and wall as realtime chat.
        
           | rahimiali wrote:
           | Also to mention soda's kernel was patched to kprint() a
           | rootcow at boot, before even the network driver was loaded.
           | Dedication to style.
        
           | cubes wrote:
           | True. Is soda still a thing? IIRC, soda also allowed non-root
           | users to use the wall utility?
        
             | schoen wrote:
             | Patched to say "Boredcast message", as I recall!
        
       | muppetman wrote:
       | Similar to this, many years ago on HN there was a website shared
       | that would convert an image into HTML. I used it to generate the
       | 404 image on my personal website: https://micro.muppetz.com/404 -
       | Warning often causes older/slower browsers to really choke!
       | 
       | If anyone remembers what that URL was, I'd love you to share it.
       | No amount of googling recently has been able to find it, I expect
       | it's probably lost to the sands of time. I've tried a few others
       | I found on google but none produce anything like that quality.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tomjakubowski wrote:
         | If you have some interest in image processing, and know a
         | little bit of HTML, a program like that would be a great
         | learning project!
        
           | muppetman wrote:
           | Sadly the only programming "language" I know is ircII and
           | that's not exactly in demand :)
        
         | jdfellow wrote:
         | libcaca [0] command img2txt can output html
         | 
         | [0] http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/libcaca
        
           | pmoriarty wrote:
           | Though I've never tried it, I believe it can also be used by
           | mpv to play videos in ascii.
        
             | muppetman wrote:
             | I remember back in the day watching videos using mplayer
             | with its ascii output. That was always a riot!
        
         | CameronNemo wrote:
         | Is there a point to converting an image to HTML? I can use
         | various programs to convert an image to SVG.
        
           | muppetman wrote:
           | Purely for fun - I'd like to make some more 404 pages like
           | the one I linked to, and other various bits. I really like
           | rendering images using text and the webapp I used did such a
           | great job (IMHO) I don't think it has any practical purpose.
        
           | kzrdude wrote:
           | I think it's for fun
        
       | benjaminwootton wrote:
       | Frequently use figlet in shell scripts to demarcate sections.
       | Very handy tool!
        
       | sequoia wrote:
       | Here's an intro to toilet (similar tool) I wrote a while back:
       | https://sequoia.makes.software/fun-with-toilet/
        
       | ghgr wrote:
       | I love figlet! I use it to generate the ssh banner in every
       | server I set up. Not just for the l33t factor ;) but also to
       | quickly confirm visually which host I'm connecting to (specially
       | when multi-hopping, where you can see the whole chain of hosts).
       | It works not only with pure ssh, but also with tools working on
       | top of it (scp, rsync, port forwarding... I'm not sure if even
       | sshfs).
        
         | lgvld wrote:
         | Same here! I feel "at home" when I set a more personnal banner.
         | ;-)
         | 
         | Still I did not know figlet was a thing: I hitherto used the
         | Text to ASCII Art Generator (from patorjk.com) to do so. So
         | thank you for posting this. Obviously a CLI tool had to exist,
         | but I never thought about it.
        
         | outworlder wrote:
         | I like to use cowsay for this - in non-work settings.
         | 
         | neofetch > motd is also nice.
         | 
         | https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch
         | 'c.          <hostname redacted>
         | ,xNMM.          ----------------------------------
         | .OMMMMo           OS: macOS Catalina 10.15.7 19H1519 x86_64
         | OMMM0,            Host: MacBookPro13,3              .;loddo:'
         | loolloddol;.      Kernel: 19.6.0
         | cKMMMMMMMMMMNWMMMMMMMMMM0:    Uptime: 5 days, 19 hours, 2 mins
         | .KMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWd.    Packages: 38 (brew), 620 (nix-
         | user)          XMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMX.      Shell: zsh 5.7.1
         | ;MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:       Resolution: 3440x1440
         | :MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:       DE: Aqua
         | .MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMX.      WM: Quartz Compositor
         | kMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWd.    WM Theme: Orange (Light)
         | .XMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMk   Terminal: iTerm2
         | .XMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMK.   Terminal Font: Iosevka-Fixed-
         | Slab-Medium 16             kMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMd     CPU:
         | Intel i7-6700HQ (8) @ 2.60GHz
         | ;KMMMMMMMWXXWMMMMMMMk.      GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530, AMD
         | Radeon Pro 450                .cooc,.    .,coo:.        Memory:
         | 10974MiB / 16384MiB
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | Figlet is so much fun.
        
       | reportaman wrote:
       | text art with functional value:
       | https://github.com/reportaman/arttime. It's displays your text
       | art/figlet, while serving as a nifty clock/timer. No dependencies
       | other than having zsh installed on your system, which exists on
       | Mac by default.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | krnlpnc wrote:
       | Ooh, do cowsay next!
        
       | kalleboo wrote:
       | figlet, cowsay and tractorgen are the essentials on any UNIX
       | machine
        
       | pvg wrote:
       | Previous thread from 2020, 61 comments
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926979
        
         | guessmyname wrote:
         | People re-post stuff like this all the time -
         | https://xkcd.com/1053/
         | 
         | All the previous threads (plural) [1] have something
         | interesting.
         | 
         | [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=figlet
        
       | adamrezich wrote:
       | anyone remember the web version at good ol'
       | flamingtext.com/tools/figlet? rip
        
         | carapace wrote:
         | I use http://www.patorjk.com/software/taag/
         | 
         | It has a "Test All" button that's fun.
        
       | nine_k wrote:
       | Wow, the page has a few ftp:// links. The infrastructure must be
       | really stable.
        
       | riidom wrote:
       | I like to use the VSCode extension for this, ASCIIDecorator. It's
       | good for having readable text in the Minimap.
        
         | russellendicott wrote:
         | > It's good for having readable text in the Minimap.
         | 
         | Nice. Good idea.
        
       | Foomf wrote:
       | There are so many web based ascii text generators out there. What
       | sets this one apart?
       | 
       | Edit: looks like all those web based ascii text generators are
       | just using figlet under the hood.
        
         | koolba wrote:
         | Existing multiple decades ago and being available on just about
         | every FOSS operating system.
        
           | Foomf wrote:
           | I just realized now that many of the web based ascii text
           | generators use figlet under the hood. I wish I could delete
           | my comment but I seem to be unable to.
        
             | patorjk wrote:
             | I have a popular web based ascii text generator
             | (https://patorjk.com/software/taag), it uses FIGlet driver
             | that I wrote (https://github.com/patorjk/figlet.js/). Many
             | of the other ones out there also use their own drivers
             | (I've seen some written in php and python). There are also
             | different types of ASCII text fonts out there other than
             | FIGlet (ex: my app compiles fonts that were made in the AOL
             | days in the Arial font - which is interesting because it's
             | a non-monospaced font).
             | 
             | FIGlet is the most popular spec for these types of fonts
             | though (it's an app and a spec). The mailing list hasn't
             | been active in a decade, but people used to submit fonts
             | there. It was cool to see what people made.
        
       | alephnan wrote:
       | Has anyone made a JavaScript port?
       | 
       | Edit: ooh. There's this. But it's 6MB.
       | https://www.npmjs.com/package/figlet
        
       | vogt wrote:
       | I made use of a "for fun" type React module called react-rainbow-
       | ascii (paraphrasing) that had figlet integration that worked
       | really nicely just yesterday. If the author stumbles upon this
       | comment, just know I appreciate the ability to leverage all of
       | the figlet fonts!
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-25 23:01 UTC)