from Hacker News

Diagon – Interactive ASCII art diagram generators

by lervag on 12/21/21, 8:17 AM with 10 comments

  • by dspillett on 12/21/21, 11:32 AM

    Nice. I've seen similar tools for small subsets of what this is doing, but it'll be useful to have a set of utilities like this done well in one place.

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    One thing I've wanted for ages (and might like to write but will likely never find time) is something that does drawio/viso-like diagram manipulation but works in ASCII/Unicode, defaults to text output, and maintains limits (forcing the grid granularity and sufficient spacing for connectors) to make that practical even if offering a more “graphical” output and edit experience.

    I've seen a few tools that let you draw diagrams in ASCII/unicode but they have all been more akin to paint than drawio, in that you can't edit objects or move them around after placing, and have connectors & such reflow.

    It would be useful for dropping diagrams into otherwise text-only media (flow and table diagrams in readme files, adding table diagrams on dba.stackoverflow without needing to instead link to a graphic or edit more by hand, ...) while allowing a prettier output (as SVG or a bitmap) for where that is relevant. If anyone knows of such a tool I've missed that they can point me to, or wants to go away and write one for me, please do!

  • by sbuk on 12/21/21, 3:58 PM

    The best app I know of for this is Monodraw (https://monodraw.helftone.com/)

  • by productivepizza on 12/21/21, 3:39 PM

    I've searched for something like this before. I was looking to create diagrams in a markdown file. I found mermaid was a better option in that specific case. https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/

  • by wodenokoto on 12/21/21, 7:43 PM

    Can it reverse engineer a diagram?

    It would be kinda neat to store only the output in, say, a readme file or whatever, and not have to have a second file with the input.

  • by taubek on 12/21/21, 10:11 AM

    This looks really cool. To me personally graphs look the best with "ASCII only" option turned on.

  • by nchase on 12/21/21, 9:44 AM

    I feel like this is something I have been looking for for years.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 12/21/21, 9:12 PM

    Is this from (2018)?