Ansi drawing tools reddit / bbs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-02 16:52 I'm thinking about updating my old ansi drawing tool and search for input on what's important and what is missing in current drawing tools. I'm shooting for a more heavyweight tool than moebuis/pablodraw. And I want to have some BBS specific features in it. What BBS features could be useful for you? I'm not an ansi artist (or something in that direction) and I want to know what potential users want/need for better planing. So every input helps. \+ What's your must-have features? \+ What do you miss in current tooling? ​ ​ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Otherwise-Willow6904 · 2023-09-02 17:20 What BBS software are you using? Normally the screen is just that, a pretty picture to display what the menu options are. You can have the BBS display useful information, like user name, number of calls and such. All the functions are driven by the menu behind the screen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- codefenix · 2023-09-02 17:51 ACiDDraw had a nice option of specifying a maximum number of characters per line when saving ANSI files. Such an option is absent in Pablo/Moebius, but it's present in Mystic's built-in editor. To be clear, I'm not talking about simply the number of columns in the visible ANSI presentation, but rather the number of raw characters including the escape sequences within the file before a carriage return. The main reason why one would even want an option like this is to ensure ANSI art that they post on message networks (i.e.: BBS ads) show up properly on other BBSes' message readers. Certain (older) readers have poor automatic line-wrapping logic that doesn't account for ANSI escape sequences, so they end up looking garbled on the other end. Telling ACiDDraw to keep the line length less than 80 gets around this problem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-02 18:27 ATM I don't use any BBS software. But I will at some point. I think I'll use Enigma. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-02 18:30 y that's certainly one of the bbs features. Thanks. I'll put it on the todo list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Otherwise-Willow6904 · 2023-09-02 18:39 Install it and play with it then. Different BBS software will have different options and features. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-02 20:47 That's why I'm asking for input. I make toolings atm like a terminal program, ansi viewer, ppe decompiler :) and now I update my drawing tool. Even if I play around with every bbs package available, I'll never get all the nice things together. I've sysop experience from the 90' with remote access and pcboard but that may be outdated. Even though I'll be going to support PCB color codes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-02 20:49 ok now I know what you mean - like the @ tags from PCB. y at some point I'll add the bbs specific codes for that user name/number of calls for the most used bbs systems. ​ That's one of the 'bbs' features on the planing board. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-02 21:57 Back in the day I started with RemoteAccess but I mainly ran Oblivion/2 then switched to iNiQUiTY. Acutally, I'm currently attempting to get an old machine running iNiQUiTY over telnet again as we speak LOL As far as ansi drawing, I used TheDraw forever until AcidDraw was released. Can't really think of any complaints about the two off the top of my head, except that AcidDraw allowed 1000 lines whereas TheDraw allowed 25-100 lines depending on the version. I had just started using one called DarkDraw that seemed promising since it allowed somewhere around 3,000 lines, but I never really got into that one and it died not to long after. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XaviousD · 2023-09-02 22:02 I'm trying to get oblivion/2 2.4 and 2.35 setup myself. looking for to the time spent. havent seen any ads for boards running obv so I'm not sure how viable it is ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-02 23:39 Soever about a week doing just that, but think my old p4 is just a bit much for obv2 so switched over to Iniquity since it had some unofficial updates that helped with telnet and what not ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XaviousD · 2023-09-03 00:25 yeah, only reason i was thinking obv/2 is because i ran that back in the day. I ran a small art/modback group called Sphere of Illusions (SOi) back in '94-'96. Was able to find a few packs on the archives from 96 that had a few of my ansi's mods for obv. I have mystic on my ubuntu vm installed playing around with it. I think i'm just going to learn/use that instead. now to download every artpack i can find and try to find all the old artwork that was done for my board back in the day. Do you know if anyone is doing ansi these days? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-03 01:07 lol ya, I have mystic on a win machine, which is what got me wanting to play with the old software... i'll keep playing with obv2 and iniq on one machine while playing with mystic on the other as well.... ill post anything i come up with.. should move this to another sub tho.. dont wanna hijack this thread..... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whizzfizzz · 2023-09-03 02:19 make sure you post up the address if you get that iniquity setup online! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-03 02:19 will do! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alvarkresh · 2023-09-03 05:55 There was an old DOS utility called Screen Debut that was actually better than TheDraw, which was considered THE utility at the time. What a friend of mine and I found out was that if you use TheDraw vs Screen Debut, TheDraw saves all the intermediate erasure steps when you draw an ANSI art, whereas Screen Debut only saves the final displayed characters. This was borne out by the file sizes: TheDraw's .ANS file was like 100K, and the Screen Debut one was like 5K. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aguyfromhere · 2023-09-03 13:14 Back in the 90s I used TheDraw. It had everything. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-03 13:25 TheDraw is surely the thing that will be my main source of features :). In the 90' I had MysticDraw it was basically an acid draw clone with tdf fonts on top. Do you remember one super nice feature from TheDraw? Not everyone uses these tools in the same way. A must have feature for user X may not even be used by user Y. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aplos9 · 2023-09-03 17:13 Speaking of fonts I remember in the day I could set a don’t and type I think. That’s a real nice feature. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IndianaJoenz · 2023-09-03 19:32 I made my own ANSI editor, too, and some of the more unique features in mine that I would like to see in other ANSI editors and BBSs are: 1: Unicode 2: 256 color xterm 3: Can run in a terminal instead of a GUI We have these amazing terminals. We might as well use them and make some amazing BBSs. Simulating an IBM-PC is fun and all, but there are many more possibilities for ANSI art now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitlman · 2023-09-04 04:58 If you use Block Save (Alt-B) to save your ANSI in TheDraw, it would/will do the same thing (save the final display characters, no animation sequences). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alvarkresh · 2023-09-04 05:02 Damn, would've been nice to know that, heh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-05 05:09 Unicode is important but the first version won't have it - however it's prepared for it internally I've no deps on IBM-PC - everything is unicode :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nevarro · 2023-09-08 01:24 One feature I use frequently in PabloDraw is opening two instances of it, clicking and dragging to make a selection in one, copy, then go to the other instance and paste. Not sure if others do that. Might just be a sysop thing :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-08 03:07 i def do that! lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- b33znutz · 2023-09-08 03:09 one thing i like about pablo is the thumbails down the side. very helpful when one doesnt know or remember the name of the file to be edited or something like that.. that make sense? lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Open-Understanding48 · 2023-09-09 18:51 Unfortunately no - are they inside the program or are you talking about some os feature?