Extended Character Aascii Art questions

[Edvard]

Ok, I understand ascii art. No prob. But what about the extended character set from "terminal" font? Let me explain...

I use the "tree" program to make file listings. If I open it up in Notepad, all is fine, I can see the tree lines...



But then I go to print it, and this is what happens...



No big deal, I can pass the /A switch to tree and it'll turn out ok, but then a similar issue came up...

Remember the .nfo files that were found in many *cough* 3rd-party security patches *cough* that had fancy ascii art?
I had downloaded and tested a file find utility (you can never have too many) and inside the zip there was a very nice .nfo file:



On a whim, I tried to print it. Surprise surprise, it wouldn't print the shade blocks as they appeared.

So, now I have two questions.
1- Is there any way to print the extended characters?
2- Is there a text-mode drawing program that utilizes those extended characters? (looks like fun!)

I realize there is a HUGE history behind those characters and it seems to be one of those things common to the computing world wherein something creatively coded and immensely useful for it's day gives way to waves of the future, but still manages to pop up like zombies in a Romero flick...

[lanux128]

have you tried printing the file from a RTF-capable editors such as Wordpad?

[Edvard]

Nope-doesn't work. I can open it and select the text and use the font, so it displays correctly, but still won't print as displayed. I have a feeling that it is more an issue with my printer than anything. The Terminal font is a bitmap font, correct? Maybe it just doesn't translate over to postscript (which my printer uses). I have tried ripping the .txt file to PostScript 2 ways: 1- using the printer driver and 2- using GhostScript. Either way does not work.

[Ruffnekk]

Hey man, you got software from AmoK I used to be a member and coder for them. As a matter of fact, I see my name is still listed on the site *lol*.

!!! Big P.S.: AmoK has NOTHING to do with cracking other applications !!! (Before the flaming starts )

Any ways, maybe you can use ASCII Art Studio. It full of functionality and supports extended characters.

[Edvard]

Hey man, you got software from AmoK

Yes- the "Find.More" app. Just testing it, it was in Deutsch, so I couldn't figure out the controls.

!!! Big P.S.: AmoK has NOTHING to do with cracking other applications !!!

Right- I just noticed that AmoK's .nfo had a similar look to the .nfo files from those sorts of files.
(I was an unscrupulous man in my time, and DC has already a LONG thread on the ethics of cracking and using cracks, so I'll not continue further on that...)

Any ways, maybe you can use ASCII Art Studio. It full of functionality and supports extended characters.

Wow, that looks like exactly what I'm looking for, but since my interest is really not much more than a lark, the $29.95 price tag is more than I can justify. I might use it twice for fun, if at all.

[f0dder]

Thing with extended ASCII is that it depends on on the codepage. Notepad doesn't download fonts to your printer afaik, it probably just selects whatever is close to "courier new". Good old .nfo files display correctly in dos codepage 865, which is different from the windows standard. As for getting correct printing - no idea.

But for viewing, I suggest Kwazy Webbit's NFO Scroller, from http://reteam.org/tools.html . Never got around finishing my own, so I gave him my cp865.bin and rendering code, and the end result is nice

[lanux128]

also try this viewer, claims to have print support..

Version 3 includes several new features like Print support, URL launch, Find/Replace, Trim copy and Keyword highlights.

GetDiz v3

[attach=#]

[mouser]

For creating ascii art:


Email Effects
http://www.sigsoftware.com/emaileffects
[attach]

[f0dder]

Hm, GetDiz (at least judging by the screenshot) doesn't have the right cp865 font, so it looks pretty ugly imho. ASCII Art Studio is a bit cute, but doesn't use the right codepage/font either (not even in edit mode, haven't tried printing).

[Edvard]

For low-level ascii things like "Figlet" fonts and such, I have used Jave5 (which does all the rendering at AsciiMaps). Free and full-featured, you can even do ascii animations and export to gif! But, sadly it does not use the extended characters in any function.

f0dder, the NFOScroller is way cool, but it doesn't print

[Edvard]

f0dder: You're right, the text in GetDiz is kinda squished, compared to NFO Scroller.
GetDiz at least prints, but there are white lines running under all the rows, totally ruining the effect.
Oh Well...

[f0dder]

It should be pretty easy to add printing to the nfo scroller, but that would be graphical printing - which is (possibly a lot) slower than font-based printing. And if not done right, could also look ugly. I guess I might have a look at implementing that...

[Edvard]

I've been digging around the RTF 1.5 spec (for another project I'm brewing) and I noticed you can call codepages within rtf documents in the header (or anywhere else for that matter) with the \cpg tag (865=Norwegian?...). Also there are the \ansi \mac \pc \pca tags to play with. Maybe I can still get this baby to kick...

[Nighted]

Here's a few, NFO Builder 2000 1.02 has been around for a few years and is a decent free graphical NFO creator.

[lanux128]

good find, Nighted! btw, NFOlux looks good..

NFOlux is a small application that will allow you to create as well as view NFO files. I have seen many NFO viewers but I have never seen one that will do both.

[attach=#]

[app103]

Am I missing something here or am I the only one to think of the obvious...

Any screen capture program that is capable of scrolling window captures should be able to get the whole thing just as you see it on your screen...then save the image and print that scaled to fit your page.

Wouldn't that work? Then you could use the application that makes the nicest looking display of the ascii art and not having to worry about whether it prints it or not.

[Edvard]

Yes, app that would be the best way and as you can see, that's how I posted the samples. But I think a point is being missed here...

What I WANT is a program that can open a file that contains extended character text, and hit the "Print" button and it prints it as it is displayed. Period. Done.
Specifically the pseudo-graphical output from "tree".
Why?

1- In the business in which I am employed, I find it convenient to give clients a handy list of files I have archived for them. I have an entry in my context menu that when I right click a folder, I select "print folder tree" and it hits a .bat file that looks like this:

Code

@echo off
tree /A %1 > "%temp%\dirlist"
start /w notepad /p "%temp%\dirlist"
del "%temp%\dirlist"
exit

And it prints a nice little tree of my files, with "+" signs at the nodes and so on. .
Go ahead, try it, it's fun...
Works, right? So what's the problem, you ask...

2- it bugs me that I can't figure out how to print out the nice little line diagram that 'tree' gives you without the '/A' flag. I can see it in the command box, I can see it when I open in notepad, but it .does.not.print.
I have tried all kind of Directory printing applications, so PLEASE don't go there, I have tried them all, and what I want is this one little simple thing, I can't believe there is NO application that can simply DO it.
I happened upon the idea of using .nfo viewers because they can read those extended characters and HOPEFULLY one of them will also be able to print it. (even more hopefully, automatically when I call it with a '/p' flag like notepad so I don't have to re-invent the wheel I am currently running on...)

I am currently working on the idea to use Autohotkey to parse the output from my little script into .rtf code and replace the node symbols with the cute little folder icons from Wingdings and print it out from Wordpad. That would be neat, eh?

And besides, the .nfo style of ascii art looks like fun...

[Edvard]

Ok, so I have a solution to my first problem...
First, a2ps from the GnuWin32 tools.
Second, a batch script and a little learnin' about the 'print' command.

Code

@echo off
tree %1 | a2ps - -1 -B --encoding=ibm-cp437 --center-title="Directory Listing" -o %temp%\tree
print /D:<insert your printer here> %temp%\tree
pause

and that does it...

BTW-Processing NFO files through a2ps with the 'ibm-cp437' encoding does well also. I'd like to see what it does with the proper 865 codepage.

Thanks all for the help.