Re: About rendering ascii code in a .txt medium

> > Definition: ascii art (in my view) is using ascii code to make pictures.
> > PERIOD.
> Then this immediately rules out forms such as GIF and other non-ASCII
> storage methods.  These don't use the ASCII code set in any way or form.

That's not correct. Correct is that the ascii standard very wisely does not
prescribe any media, and therefore, myriads of media are supporting ascii in
the real world.

Consider again the ascii pic printout, it is ascii art, because it uses ascii
code to make the pic, although it has lost the ascii code. Similarly, an ascii
pic contained in a gif file is ascii art since it uses ascii code to make the
pic, although it has lost the ascii code.

> The only form that uses the ascii code set as defined by this newsgroup is a
> plain 7-bit black and white text file.

That's exactly the reason why I said that the ascii community has a
self-limiting behaviour. This is not to insult anyone, this is because the
ascii standard itself allows you to use myriads more media, see the above.

> HTML source files fall into this category as well (but the files often
> associated with an HTML file, such as pictures or animations, do not).

Well, if the pics are made with ascii code, then that's ascii art, no matter
what media (html or otherwise.)

If the pics are not made with ascii code, then that's not ascii art, no matter
what media (html or otherwise.)

If the animations are made with ascii code, then that's ascii art, no matter
what media (html or otherwise.)

If the animations are not made with ascii code, than that's not ascii art, no
matter what media (html or otherwise.)

> All others are supersets of ASCII media - HTML and Javascript both could
> fall into this category.

I would simply say that the ascii code can be used for making pics in the html
and Javascript media and that you can therefore generate ascii art with these media.

> If you want a file to be portable and displayable on every platform out
> there, ASCII is the only way to do it without losing the quality of the
> image.

That is not correct either. The correct rendition of ascii pics depends
heavily on typographical settings, even in such a simple medium as a .txt
medium. For example, if the typography of a newsreader is set to proportional,
then non-proportional based ascii pics will be damaged.

I think that you are confusing two different things:

1. compatibility of ascii code with most computing platforms
2. correct rendering of ascii pics

Compatibility of ascii code is high, close to 100%, no disagreement here. But
the topic of this thread is something different, it is the correct rendering
of ascii pics. And with regard to that, I guestimated the portability of ascii
pics at 80% and declining, due to the world moving to proportional.

> > newsgroup with the name alt.ascii-art.animation
> And this newsgroup is alt.ascii-art, so your point is moot.

You took the quote out of context. The context of the quote was an example
that animation is ascii art, as long as ascii code is used for making it.
Therefore, the quote is very well relevant.

> > Comment #2: One is also free to use any typographical settings such as
> > proportional and non-proportional font, e.g. Arial based pics are ascii art
> > pieces with this specific typographical setting (the Arial font.)
> One is NOT free to use these.

That is not correct. Correct is, that the ascii standard itself allows for ANY
typographical settings.

The ascii standard has (very wisely again) refrained from prescribing any
typography and myriads and myriads of typography in the real word therefore
supports the ascii standard!

What you then went on to say has to nothing to do with the ascii standard.
What you are saying below has only to do with typography, which is outside of
the ascii standard.

> Why?  Can my computer display this Arial font?  Not while I'm online it sure
> can't.
<snip a lot of lamentation on *typography*>

> Specifying the "default system font" doesn't take trickery - it takes a
> simple act of not specifying other fonts.  ASCII art is for fixed-spaced
> ASCII-oriented fonts.  Not for Arial or Helvetica.

Ensuring that the system font is used in a multi-platform piece, does require
a little trickery, i.e. you need inter-activity between the piece and the
computer that it happens to run on, to determine and access the system font,
that happens to be native on that particular computer. 

If you don't do this little trickery, then the typographical setting of the
email or newsgroup (or any other) software will override the system font.

> Furthermore, choosing a font for a particular part of a text file means
> someone has to use some form of code system (such as HTML) to specify that
> font.  Uh oh...Now we can't just TYPE (or MORE or @T) the file to our
> screen!  It's full of "garbage" codes!
> Now we have to load up some program (like an HTML view/browser) to see the
> file.

You have to load some kind of software anyway to look at the ascii pics on the
newsgroup, and more and more newsgroup software is defaulting to html.

Moreover, this is both challenge AND opportunity to make lemonade from those
proportional lemons! 

(Can someone please draw proportional lemons and lemonade?)

> I would guess, however that a good 80% of the machines out there can deal
> with more than just ASCII.  Most can display graphics of some sort, but
> where do we stop?  320x200 in 16 colors (the Commodore 64 for example)?
> 800x600 in 16 million colors (most modern PC's)?
> 
> 1024x768 in 32-bit color (don't know of any examples offhand)?
> 
> It stops when a significant portion of the users can (*or can't if you
> prefer) display the image or format you would propose.  HTML isn't as widely
> used as ANSI X3.64 (and it certainly isn't as standardised), but can all
> platforms use these standards?  No.

There is no stop as far as the ascii standard itself is concerned. Just use
ascii code and you are free to use all the resolution and all the colors you want!

> What do you mean by "protection" [of] an ascii pic?

Wow! That is a central theme of this thread! Anyway, assuring the correct
rendition of ascii code into an ascii pic, that's what I meant by protection
of an ascii pic.

For example, the .txt medium just uses its typographical setting, and if the
setting is proportional, then garbage is displayed, that's what I meant with
the .txt medium offering no protection for ascii pics.

In contrast to that, the .html medium has typographical tags to ensure the
correct rendering of the ascii code into ascii pics, and that's what I meant
with the .html medium offering protection for ascii pics.

> There's no need to "protect" a picture.  You just specify that it is an
> ASCII picture, and 99.99999% of the users out there will know what to do
> with it, or at least, how do display it.

There is increasingly a need to protect ascii pics in this increasingly
proportional world. Just look at the many guests on this newsgroup wondering
why they see garbage instead of pics. Many don't even know how to change their
typographical setting even after receiving advice!

> Those 10% that don't know what to do with an ASCII picture probably aren't
> interested in ASCII art anyways.

Well, we certainly turn off most of the 20% of the guests who see garbage and
have problems fiddling with their typographical settings, just to read this
newsgroup. 

They would have to pay a price too, you know, in foregoing the benefits of
proportional font. The world is going proportional for a reason, i.e. for its
benefits. For some of the guests, the price will be too high, which is, in
principle at least, not necessary at all.

> Universal font as defined by this newsgroup means the default fixed-spaced
> font that your system uses on startup (or at least, that it uses for things
> like text dumps, documentation files, and other unformatted text).
> 
> Universal font doesn't mean Helvetica or TImes New Roman.  It doesn't
> indicate a specific typeface.  It indicates only the ASCII compatible (or
> modifyable) fixed-spaced font that is used when you are not running a
> graphical environment.

You took the above quote out of context. The universal font issue was to
denote a font face which was availabe on all computing platforms and which
also looks (near) identical on all computing platforms. The univeral font
in that context did not refer to the non-proportional aspect only.

> Try getting Arial font to be used when you're running a DOS program!  Unless
> you load the font with a program designed to modify the DOS font, you're not
> gonna see it.  And even if you do, you're still gonna see a fixed-spaced
> screen.  That's what defines ASCII art.

Well, that's again like expecting color prints from a black and white printer!
And you are lamenting on *typography* again!

Typography (in DOS and elsewhere) does NOT define ascii art. What defines
ascii art is the ascii standard which does NOT prescribe typography.

Things are becoming repetitive, aren't they?

> > and Shockwave (the media that allow for inter-activity) therefore detect the
> > computing platform that you are using, and display the captions in the system
> Try detecting the platform I am running at this very moment!  It's not too
> easy to find what platform you are running if you are dialed up through a
> shell account (many people I know use shells, probably a good 10% of the
> Internet community uses them on a daily basis, and another 10% probably have
> a shell available if they need it.  By shell I mean a Unix command prompt on
> your internet provider, NOT a DOS shell on your computer).
> 
> By the way, your "detect" idea would fail miserably here - I'm at my mom's
> house using her PC, telnetted into my shell account on a BSDI (Unix) system,
> yet this machine is running Windows 95, over a PPP dialup connection to my
> mom's provider.
> 
> a pretty common scenerio, realy, for those of us who use a shell but
> sometimes use a computer away from home, that doesn't necessarily use a
> terminal program for modem communication (read: virtually every
> Windows-based PC in existance).

These solutions do work. For example, the Java applet is downloaded to the
user's computer (even via multiple concatenated links,) the applet then runs
on the user's computer to find suitable fonts on the user's computer that it
then uses to display the ascii movies!

I have tested these solutions before posting on my website, BTW. And FWIW, I
have left the .html medium behind me, exactly because other media are so much
more capable!

> Throw a standard ASCII picture (as defined in this newsgroup) at that person
> and they'll be wuite happy, knowing that thier system, like all computers,
> has a fixed-width font already installed.

Well, there will be about 80% happiness and 20% unhappiness, with the
happiness is going down, see above. Decisive is not whether a fixed-width font
is installed, but whether their email and newsgroup software have the correct
typographical setting. If the typography is set to proportional, then having
fixed-width font installed won't help, and that's where the 20% (and growing)
unhappiness comes from.

(Yep, things are becoming repetitive!)

> But, when you speak of fixed-spacing fonts, the user already has one.  It
> doesn't have a name, nor a number - it is just there.  In DOS, for example,
> that font is the one you are looking at throughout your DOS session.

The point is, that the "non-proportional only" solution works less and less
well in an increasingly proportional world, the 20% unhappiness will increase.
Look at the big picture, and you will see the following issues:

* the issue that email and newsgroup software are increasingly defaulting to
proportional, destroying ascii pics
* most computer users do not change fonts
* the issue that having a fixed width font installed in your system does not
guarantee that your email and newsgroup software is going to use it, they may
very well have a proportional setting for example
* most computers now use a GUI that often correlate to proportional

> At this stage,  your estimate has to be based on the following criteria:
> * How many people use the OS you are using?
<snip list>
> * How many people have the necessary hardware and/or software to support
>   some new encoding method?
> (I mention the use of " markup scheme " for the purpose that HTMl is not
> allowed in this newsgroup, it's been ruled out.  So now, you've got to come
> up with a new method.  HTML is *NOT* an option here, PERIOD.)

Well, again, it is utterly inconsequential how much you and me love or hate
html, mainstream development will run its own course.

But you missed my point altogether with the above list of criteria. The point
that I made in my previous posting went far beyond html, comparable to the
Java applet that displays the ascii pic on each individual computer in the
best possible way, based on the what fonts the Java applet finds on your
computer etc.

> This is reaching the widest possible audience????  Seems to me that a
> company like Jensen would be concerned about this, yet the tools you speak
> of are most likely what is responsible for this site (among the many
> thousands of similar examples) being almost totally graphical.

Well, I am not responsible for other people doing bad web design. You can
always do bad designs even with the best tools. Generally speaking, bad
examples say nothing.

> The ASCII community only needs three things:

Self-limiting behaviour, better is: the ascii community has myriads of
resources at its disposal

> A program to edit ASCII pictures (*note pad does nice for some, Pico
> and Pine work well for me)
> 
> A program to display the ASCII pictures on screen (your newsreader and Email
> programs of course)

Self-limiting behaviour, better is: the ascii community has myriads of media
at its disposal

> A fixed spaced font (every computer ever built has one, even if it has to be
> rendered on a printer rather than a CRT display)

Self-limiting behaviour, better is: the ascii community has myriads of
typography at its disposal

But no worry, sooner or later everyone will understand!  ;-))

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