ASCII Draw
On releasing The Forbidden Temple of Pflarr1 module I've received multiple questions regarding its ASCII-art cover and maps. These were made using the ASCII Draw2 open-source app. I've already elaborated on the LaTeX side of things previously. Now let's see how the drawing process works.
Below the canvas is a line of drawing instruments and indicators of currently selected Primary and Secondary Characters that you can switch between by clicking on them. To the right of the canvas are two main tabs:
- Character โ a palette of ASCII and Unicode symbols.
- Style โ different available line styles applicable to some drawing instruments.
For some instruments, a third tab will appear:
- Line styles,
- Freehand and Eraser brush size,
- Text entry window and settings (shown below),
- Table properties,
- Tree view entry window,
- Move tool controls.
The first thing to do is set up the canvas size. You might notice that the size is limited to 120ร60 pixels at maximum, but this limitation could be circumvented by loading an existing text file with larger dimensions.
Using the < and > buttons of the Character tab you can scroll through the different palettes of symbols. You can also create your own custom palettes or generate one from symbols you've already put on the canvas using the New Palette From Canvas command.
The palette file is a plain text document that can be accessed and edited through the Open Palette Folder command. For example, here's the edited palette file for dungeon drawing:
'+-*/\^_|~ยทโโโโโโโโโคโฌโดโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ โกโขโฃโคโฅโฆโงโจโฉโชโซโฌโโโ
The canvas can be saved to a plain text file or copied directly to the clipboard. At that point, you can easily use it in your Retrotype3 project or any other document or piece of software that supports verbatim monospaced text usage.
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