Talk: What the next version of Figlet should be like

Ian Chai <spe...@UIUC.EDU> wrote:
>
>>>Note: I don't usually read this group in detail so you probably wanna
>>>do this discussion on FIGLET-L. (I am not sure if Glenn reads this
>>>group in detail or not.)
>>
>>   Considering the pontential of this discussion, I would assume that the
>>Figlet folks would scan for this subject line.  Perhaps I'm wrong.  And
>>just having this talk on the Figlet list leaves out those who are not
>>current subscribers.  I will try to gate this thread between the ASCII
>>art groups and the Figlet list.
>
>There's the question of time. Both Glenn and I are busy being grad
>students and check rec.arts.ascii on a rather erratic basis.

   Can't argue with you being grad students, that's obviously more 
important.

>>   Calling an outside compression program can make sense if you want to
>>actually compress a file.  But to just expand compressed files shouldn't
>>be that involved.  The ability to expand both .Z and .gz should maybe add
>>15 or 20 K to Figlet.
>>
>>   This is just a flakey guess on my part.  HyperCard is about as far as
>>I've gotten in programming.  But I think that expanding files is little
>>more than grabbing a look-up takle and subbing strings for tokens.  No?
>
>Doing a proper implementation of uncompress and gunzip is not trivial.
>They are rather elaborate compression schemes.

   I was not aware of that.

>>   I mean that it would be nice to have control on a letter by letter basis.
>
>It would be tricky to do the format changing because you'd have to then
>imbed control codes in the typing.
>^^^^^ how *do* you spell that word?

   It may not be worth it at the present.

>>>This would be tricky, and I'm not sure it's worth it -- after all, one
>>>uncompressed file at a time isn't too much space.
>>
>>   True.  I guess I'm being anal, but it dislike small temp files.  I
>>understand when a big graphics program has to keep a big vm file.  But a
>>small app like Figlet should be able to keep it all in ram.
>
>Temp files are used in UNIX, Mac, and Windows all the time. As long as
>you clean up properly after yourself, I don't see the problem. (Hah!
>Windows and Mac programs are notorious for not cleaning up properly
>after themselves! Look in your system folder sometime. The other day, I
>got an ad for a $30 program that cleans up your Windows hard disk of
>extra stuff for you! Imagine that! You actually need to PAY for a
>program to CLEAN UP??? Figlet won't cause these problems.)

   As long as it clean things up.

>>   The reason that I ask for a Mac version is that a person doesn't
>>always have access to their host computer.  So if they have a DOS machine
>>at home, they can run Figlet at home and work on ASCII art without being
>>online.  But if they have a Mac, they cannot.  I would go without a fancy
>>Mac-like interface.  After all, I go without it now, using Figlet on my host.
>
>Oh, ok, "when I have time" I'll go compile Figlet for the Mac. I don't
>have time today, though.

   Maybe somebody else could.  Volunteers?

>>   Ian can volunteer to work out the version-control.  Right?
>
>Nope, I'm too busy as it is.

   I'm sure we are all very grateful to the Figlet folks for providing us 
with the program, official site, Web page, etc.  And I imagine it's hard 
to do these things AND go to college at the same time.  It seems that 
they are in need of assistance.

   It would be good if they could find some knowledgeable person(s) who 
have some time to deal with the questions concerning Figlet that appear on 
these groups.  Again, I'm not complaining.  Just trying to help.  I 
would guess there are many Figlet users out here.

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