I like the idea of ASCII diagram editors but... Mac only and doesn't actually use ASCII as it's format? However shiny it's interface may be that seems to defeat the purpose of the portability you are supposed to get.
I've been using https://asciiflow.com/#/ to make and edit simple diagrams, it's fairly basic but sufficient for 90% of what I want so far. But would be happy to discover other editors (this is text, after all, lockin is impossible.)
It generates ASCII, or svg, or png or a variety of things. Who cares what format it stores it in. The things you generate with it are totally portable.
You may as well complain that we shouldn't write code in interpreted languages like Ruby and Perl and node because they're _also_ not portable to anyone who doesn't have the interpreter installed. But heck, compiled languages like Go and C are also not portable unless you've got the compiler installed. Only their artifacts are. We may as well abandon this whole programming thing.
Or, maybe... maybe things can still be incredibly useful even if it's only their artifacts that are portable.
The format is proprietary; source encoding and almost all PLs are not. I can install Ruby, you can install Ruby, for free, or even write my own interpreter... I cannot install Monodraw, even with money.
A big part of the lure of ASCII drawings is portability and openness on the same level as plain text.
I'm not sure what you mean by not using ASCII as its format. It lets you export as plain (ASCII) text, but the document format for the app itself also needs to keep hold of all the additional metadata related to vector shapes and groups. So it follows that the plain text representation isn't going to be sufficient to model such a document.
> It lets you export as plain (ASCII) text, but the document format for the app itself also needs to keep hold of all the additional metadata related to vector shapes and groups.
Yes this is exactly what I mean, exporting ASCII != using ASCII as the format. ASCII flow (although substantially less featureful) shows that it is possible to do reasonable shape inference directly from ASCII, and frankly this is preferable to lugging a load of proprietary application documents around with your ASCII diagrams (even though it's obviously more limited)... otherwise why bother with ASCII.
In a recent exploration of the domain, textik.com is rather bare bones, but does have some interesting features. In particular, it recognizes certain spots on the border of a rectangle as connection points. Drawing a line between two connection points establishes that similar to how drawing programs handle lines - including the "if you drag that rectangle around now, the lines connected to the connection points adjust too."
Monodraw is one of my favorite macOS applications. It’s really well made and - I don’t know how else to put this - lots of fun. I used it for all diagrams in compilerbook.com and now use it to create diagrams of control-flow graphs that I can then copy&paste as text comments into test cases. Highly recommend it.
Also its fun to use wrong tools for the right job, like using an overkill $8k/seat license (Altium Designer) ECAD tool to draw diagrams. Why the hell not!?: https://neil.computer/notes/ecad-diagrams/
I stumbled on this, very likely here on Hackernews, long back. Back then, I loved the App Icon, and then the interface, and even used it few times. I bought it and kept it, hoping to use it but my needs never needed to do this on a regular basis.
This is a tool that outputs plain text that can be opened by any other tool. Definitely not a painkiller but a good to have vitamin by your side.
I believe the team is a tiny two-member team, and they are NOT yet subscribed to the dark side. Reading on their blog, here is there first post when they released it https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-reveal/
Update: Looked up my purchase history. Bought it for $19.99 on Apr 6, 2017.
Yes, the creation/edition process must happen on macOS but the produced file may be exported as a text file and you get the original file and as such you are not locked in a proprietary format. To me it looks different than other image editing software. I mean, you could make the drawing without monopic with a text editor, it is just a convenience, but it is a really good one.
Seems a slightly strong response for something that doesn't suggest an entitlement attitude, merely a preference.
To me, it seems a reasonable preference: going for cross-platform supported tools is sensible for those without the luxury of working on just one platform and barring cases where apps are built on a platform specific library it's typically not that hard to find such apps.
It's a perfectly valid sentiment, and if anything, should not be met with reactions like yours which only create a toxic environment. Any entitlements you're seeing is imaginary or a projection.
But one‘s personal time is worth much more than ten dollars.
It a more efficient use of this time to solve a problem once instead of solving it on each platform separately.
You get a text file (if you export it). The format is cross-platform. You could make the initial in Monodraw, export it as a text file and delete de monopic file so you get a cross platform format. Editing will then be cumbersome.
You have an exported text file. While that may be cross platform, as soon as it is modified the monodraw file is no longer the source of truth for the diagram and the advantages of using it in the first place are lost or require someone to go back and update the original and export it again (and move it through the workflow).
I’ve really enjoyed Monodraw, it does what it does extremely well. My one main complaint is that the great thing about ASCII art is its portability, but Monodraw seems to require that you keep its native file format around if you don’t want to lose shape information. I’d absolutely love an app that perhaps used machine learning or just some heuristics to import plain text and detect lines, shapes and add handles to them. Perhaps Monodraw does this and I’ve not discovered it but it doesn’t happen during normal roundtripping of text.
Monodraw is an awesome tool to have in the toolbox. It's just damn fun to use. It got me out of a hole during my most recent foray into education too.
People's biggest complaint everytime it's mention on here seem to be that there's no WinX version. Okay, if you want one then go write one? I know I'd pay € for it.
I've been stuck in a WinX world recently and have started using Kroki for structured graphable info. For the most part it 'works' but it's not as much fun to just draw like Monodraw allows. Asciidraw doesn't quite hit the same sweet spots for me and I find it finicky and inaccurate.
Looks cool and seems valid if you run MacOS. On Linux you could try Emacs picture mode together with artist mode if you want to draw small diagrams for readmes and such. The first one can draw boxes around text, the second mode connects them with arrows. You can then render the resulting pictures to PNG using ditaa.
on emacs why not use PlantUML ? It's not the same thing of course, because you're not "drawing" but it seems a better solution for a manual text entry than actually trying to _draw_ diagrams.
Well-designed/built, one-time purchase, actually useful functionality - I bought it.
Would love to see the snippets part get more attention (like git integration or similar) and would be interesting to see if animation creation could be added in the next version (think ascii animations).
Something not mentioned here is http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/ This project is in java (ew) but it's open source and could probably use a rewrite in something more modern.
just want to say that I've been using this for years now and it's _so_ good. I love that i can also create nice looking SVGs from it. But i've used the ASCII export on multiple occasions to provide context for complex systems / concepts in code.
I've been using https://asciiflow.com/#/ to make and edit simple diagrams, it's fairly basic but sufficient for 90% of what I want so far. But would be happy to discover other editors (this is text, after all, lockin is impossible.)