7 ms·

Diagon – Interactive ASCII art diagram generators

83 points by lervag 5y ago

sbuk 5y ago
The best app I know of for this is Monodraw (https://monodraw.helftone.com/ https://monodraw.helftone.com/)
nchase 5y ago
I feel like this is something I have been looking for for years.
taubek 5y ago
This looks really cool. To me personally graphs look the best with "ASCII only" option turned on.
- emj 5y ago
  I feel that there needs to be more whitespaces for ASCII to work, i.e. ietf makes nice ASCII graphs but those are hand crafted. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6587#section-1 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6587#section-1
dspillett 5y ago
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. --- 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!
productivepizza 5y ago
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/#/ https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/
wodenokoto 5y ago
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.
- arthur_sonzogni 5y ago
  That would be awesome. However, this sounds a bit hard to do ;-) Would you had any ideas how to do it? I guess: 1. some custom logic very difficult to write for every translators. 2. some genetic algorithm to reconstruct the input, given the output, using the string levenshtein distance. Every translators are independants, so this would require
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
Is this from (2018)?
- arthur_sonzogni 5y ago
  Yes, it has been under development since 2018. Its name "diagon" has not been a great choice. It means (Diagram online). It is not really easy to discover it on google search unfortunately.

83 points by lervag 5y ago

sbuk 5y ago

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

nchase 5y ago

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

taubek 5y ago

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

emj 5y ago
I feel that there needs to be more whitespaces for ASCII to work, i.e. ietf makes nice ASCII graphs but those are hand crafted. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6587#section-1 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6587#section-1

dspillett 5y ago

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. --- 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!

productivepizza 5y ago

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/#/ https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/

wodenokoto 5y ago

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.

arthur_sonzogni 5y ago
That would be awesome. However, this sounds a bit hard to do ;-) Would you had any ideas how to do it? I guess: 1. some custom logic very difficult to write for every translators. 2. some genetic algorithm to reconstruct the input, given the output, using the string levenshtein distance. Every translators are independants, so this would require

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

Is this from (2018)?

arthur_sonzogni 5y ago
Yes, it has been under development since 2018. Its name "diagon" has not been a great choice. It means (Diagram online). It is not really easy to discover it on google search unfortunately.