[charlesdaniels]

I would point out that sixels[0] exist. There is a nice library, libsixel[1] for working with it, which includes bindings into many languages. If the author of sixel-tmux[2][3] is to be believed[4], the relative lack of adoption is a result of unwillingness on the part of maintainers of some popular open source terminal libraries to implement sixel support.

I can't comment on that directly, but I will say, it's pretty damn cool to see GnuPlot generating output right into one's terminal. lsix[5] is also pretty handy as well.

But yeah, I agree, I'm not a fan of all the work that has gone into "terminal graphics" that are based on unicode. It's a dead-end, as was clear to DEC even back in '87 (and that's setting aside that the VT220[6] had it's own drawing capabilities, though they were more limited). Maybe sixel isn't the best possible way of handling this, but it does have the benefit of 34 years of backwards-compatibility, and with the right software, you can already use it _now_.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel

1 - https://saitoha.github.io/libsixel/

2 - https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux

3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28756701

4 - https://github.com/csdvrx/sixel-tmux/blob/main/RANTS.md

5 - https://github.com/hackerb9/lsix

6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT220

[csdvrx]

> If the author of sixel-tmux[2][3] is to be believed[4], the relative lack of adoption is a result of unwillingness on the part of maintainers of some popular open source terminal libraries to implement sixel support.

If you have any doubt, look no further than this thread: the sixel format is attacked not for any technical reasons, but for its age, RIGHT HERE ON HN:

>> "That's a protocol that's a good forty years old, and even that is not supported. And I can see why, why on earth would you want to be adding support for that in 2021? What a ridiculous state of affairs."

What's ridiculous is, with so many examples and quotes, some people still thing I must be "emotional" (I had a long discussion here... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28761043 ) or that a few million colors is not sufficient for the terminal (!)

There is none so blind as those who will not see...

[db48x]

Sixels are fun, but I was disappointed by libsixel. It’s not really a general–purpose library; most of it is there only to implement various command–line arguments of img2sixel. Most of the functions determine what to do by parsing strings taken from the command–line arguments, so reusing it is super annoying.

When implementing a program that outputs sixels, you are better off looking elsewhere. SDL1.2-SIXEL is a good choice in general, if you are writing C or don’t mind using the C bindings for your preferred language.

[jwosty]

That’s interesting. Do you think sixels could work for the baseline tests? Would it be feasible to have them display nicely in an IDE, like VS Code or Visual Studio?

[charlesdaniels]

I don’t see why sixels couldn’t work. You’d probably want a tool to decode them, diff the images, and then output another sixel image. I’m admittedly not sure of such a tool existing off the shelf though.

I’m not aware of text editors supporting sixels, which could make preparing the tests a challenge. Certainly, you could imagine a text editor supporting them, but I’m not aware of one that does personally.

I will concede that for your specific use case, an off the shelf ASCII plotting library probably involves less custom tooling.

[MayeulC]

I find kitty's graphics protocol to be a superior implementation of the idea: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/

[user-the-name]

That's a protocol that's a good forty years old, and even that is not supported. And I can see why, why on earth would you want to be adding support for that in 2021? What a ridiculous state of affairs.

[charlesdaniels]

> That's a protocol that's a good forty years old

34 years old, actually. I guess we can go ahead and deprecate the x86 instruction set, tcp/ip, ASCII, C, tar, and many other tools and standards that are old.

> and even that is not supported.

xterm supports vt430 emulation. I use this semi regularly. I believe mintty also supports sixels, plus a handful of others. The libsixel website has a full list.

> And I can see why, why on earth would you want to be adding support for that in 2021?

You might want to read your own post ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28856005 ).

What’s your great idea as opposed to sixels?