3 ms·

I don't think I'd be totally sold on actually making diagrams this way than with, say, Dia or draw.io, but I'm now wondering if there could be converters from t

I don't think I'd be totally sold on actually making diagrams this way than with, say, Dia or draw.io, but I'm now wondering if there could be converters from those programs' native formats to the ASCII format described for Svgbob with a view to using it as an interchange format that can also be quickly converted/previewed using the actual Svgbob converter. That would be spiffy.

CameronNemo 7y ago
Why not just SVG as the interchange format?
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  I tend to think of interchange formats as human-readable and free of styling. SVG is definitely human-readable but it's harder to visualise than a well-formatted ASCII diagram, plus SVG marries content and style (text is styled by CSS, for example). The diagram aspect of an ASCII diagram is, I would say, structure, not styling, and so remains suitable for use as a basic interchange. SVG is great as an interchange for image editing, but I'm not sure that's necessarily what is best suited to basic diagramming. I'm sort of thinking like a diagram equivalent of Markdown.
  - aabbcc1241 7y ago
    IMO, SVG is less editable than ASCII diagram when you're in the console
    - zapzupnz 7y ago
      Indeed.
- bb88 7y ago
  Unfortunately, the world is stuck on CLIs that provide us only with ascii text, although some provide Unicode. It's 2019, and we're still dealing with side effects of ascii art, a throwback from the 1970s.
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    ASCII art, Unicode art, it doesn't matter what encoding you use, the result will look the same. Sometimes it's useful to represent things in text — are you going to tell us that if I should want to make a simple diagram in my code's comments, I should embed a large PNG file into a text file in order to achieve it?
    - bb88 7y ago
      Doesn't markdown do this currently? Not by embedding, but by referencing an existing image?
ivanceras 7y ago
This would be doable. Please contact me if you want me to get this build for your needs

CameronNemo 7y ago

Why not just SVG as the interchange format?

zapzupnz 7y ago
I tend to think of interchange formats as human-readable and free of styling. SVG is definitely human-readable but it's harder to visualise than a well-formatted ASCII diagram, plus SVG marries content and style (text is styled by CSS, for example). The diagram aspect of an ASCII diagram is, I would say, structure, not styling, and so remains suitable for use as a basic interchange. SVG is great as an interchange for image editing, but I'm not sure that's necessarily what is best suited to basic diagramming. I'm sort of thinking like a diagram equivalent of Markdown.
- aabbcc1241 7y ago
  IMO, SVG is less editable than ASCII diagram when you're in the console
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    Indeed.
bb88 7y ago
Unfortunately, the world is stuck on CLIs that provide us only with ascii text, although some provide Unicode. It's 2019, and we're still dealing with side effects of ascii art, a throwback from the 1970s.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  ASCII art, Unicode art, it doesn't matter what encoding you use, the result will look the same. Sometimes it's useful to represent things in text — are you going to tell us that if I should want to make a simple diagram in my code's comments, I should embed a large PNG file into a text file in order to achieve it?
  - bb88 7y ago
    Doesn't markdown do this currently? Not by embedding, but by referencing an existing image?

ivanceras 7y ago

This would be doable. Please contact me if you want me to get this build for your needs