Monodraw

[x187463]

Awesome. This is the cleanest ascii-art tool I've seen, so far. To date, I've been using

https://asciiflow.com/#/

and

https://meatfighter.com/ascii-silhouettify/

to create input text for TerminalTextEffects to create terminal animations like the following:

https://chrisbuilds.github.io/terminaltexteffects/img/change...

https://github.com/ChrisBuilds/terminaltexteffects

[theologic]

Thanks for posting this. Seems like an incredibly sharp implementation by simply bundling it into an HTML page. Extremely lightweight and portable.

[milen]

Developer of the app here, happy to answer any questions.

[benjaminleonard]

I'm a big fan of Monodraw and use it frequently for ASCII assets / animations for https://oxide.computer.

I'd love some scripting features, to create and edit designs through code. But I'm aware my use case is a little niche.

[nati0n]

I don't use the app often, but I felt comfortable purchasing because it wasn't a subscription. The few times I do want ASCII art, it does the job perfectly, so it works super well to have in my back pocket. Thanks for not going the subscription route.

[coxley]

Are there any enhancements that you've wanted to do, but haven't had the time?

I'm a huge fan, and am surprised how stable Monodraw has been for me. I've kept a single, growing document open as a scratch pad for the last three years. The only downtime was converting it to the new-ish file format haha.

[MomsAVoxell]

Very nice product!

In the retro computing world, the use of "ASCII" to construct levels and worlds is quite prevalent.

I immediately considered whether Monodraw might be used as a kind of level editor in that context.

Would you consider adding an '8-bit character bitmap' mode, which allows for the bitmap to also be edited?

With such a feature, Monodraw would become immediately applicable to those of us building retro games for older platforms where this technique is used rather extensively to produce compelling art-work.

For context, here is an example game which uses plain ol' ASCII chars to deliver some fun Moon Buggy action:

https://www.oric.org/software/ascii_moon_buggy-2500.html

The same technique is used here, albeit with redefined character sets, to implement a Scuba Dive adventure:

https://www.oric.org/software/scuba_dive-89.html

[akupila]

Like many others I also want to express my gratitude for a fantastic app. I bought it in 2016 and it’s seen a lot of use since then (recently almost daily). Being able to copy to clipboard for adding diagrams in source code is the killer feature!

[FeloniousHam]

Just want to say thanks for a great app. It's one of my favorite tools, even though I don't get to use it that often.

[abtinf]

I am trying it for the first time. One point of feedback, with the caveat that my only experience so far is opening the tutorial:

I immediately hate that when intending to scroll vertically using the trackpad on my macbook, it constantly unintentionally scrolls horizontally as well and I have to correct it. It is particularly irritating since there is no content on the canvas to see when scrolling.

Maybe I'm just super accustomed to browser scrolling behaviors, which snap scrolling based on initial direction.

I'm mostly posting this because its the kind of papercut that might be forgotten over time.

[chang1]

Great app... it's had a place on my macOS dock for years. I use it for adding diagrams to my team's internal developer documentation (mostly in a series of Markdown files).

[myfonj]

What is the Unicode support? Namely the "Symbols for Legacy Computing"[0] (including the latest supplements [1]) with "newly available" full octants palette could be neat to get sub-character "octant pixel" precision. (And/or exploitation of Braille [2] for the same purpose.)

(Not a Mac user, so cannot try, and not clear from screenshots for me; these all seem like ASCII + )

[0] https://www.unicode.org/charts/nameslist/c_1FB00.html [1] https://www.unicode.org/charts/nameslist/c_1CC00.html [2] https://www.unicode.org/charts/nameslist/c_2800.html

[dravine]

I just wanted to say thanks for making it. I love this app, use it all the time, and the only thing I wish for is a version for Linux.

Bravo.

[SirFatty]

Windows version in the future?

[elcapitan]

Really neat, great work!

Would it be possible to export to text with escape sequences for the colors?

[tasuki]

I'd expect more of an introduction:

> Harness the Power and Simplicity of Plain Text

Nice tagline, but surely it's not just plain text. It's some unicode shenanigans. How does one make sure their console can display all the necessary characters? How does one make sure others can see their creation?

[shirol]

> Monodraw does not use activation or any other form of DRM. We have complete trust in our customers.

Interesting. But, why?

[bayindirh]

Hi Milen.

I love the app, please keep up the good work. It's perfect as is (at least for me).

Thanks for all the text ;)

[butlike]

Just wanted to say: really love the app. Been using it for years. I love the image overlay since I mainly enjoy making ascii renditions of pictures manually by hand.

[tailspin2019]

I love Monodraw, been using it for years. Keep up the good work!

Was going to politely ask for full dark mode but just noticed from your blog that it seems to be on the way?

[rbanffy]

Nice!

Does it support the new 3x2 and 4x2 mosaic characters (and the HP big 3x3 cell letters) from recent Unicode specs?

[therealfiona]

Any plans for a Linux version? Sounds super cool, but I can't run it.

[cjk]

Thanks for Monodraw. I've used it for years and thoroughly enjoy it.

[hiltmon]

Huge fan of the product, just wanted to say Thank You :)

[gardenhedge]

Was this to scratch your own itch or who needs this?

[linhns]

Any chance for web version?

[commandersaki]

Best app on mac hands down.

[mathfailure]

Why do you GEO-block?

[jzs]

Ouch! It looks very sweet i must say. Having worked on a similar idea for a while as a side project, it does hurt to see something better coming out.

I hope we can one day compete. :)

Edit: removed the URL

[smusamashah]

Some relevant browser based ascii-drawing tools.

https://app.monosketch.io/

https://web.archive.org/web/20210503172024/https://fatiherik...

https://textik.com/#

https://asciiflow.com/#/

https://fsymbols.com/draw/

[agentultra]

Don’t forget emacs. It has artist-mode.

[tracker1]

https://github.com/cwensley/pablodraw

https://alternativeto.net/software/monodraw/

[randomgermanguy]

Bought this couple months ago, and am now always looking for more ways to include this for inline-documentation.

the fact i can export to clipboard and re-import it and reconstruct all the shapes etc. almost flawlessly is such a big win.

[sorentwo]

Absolutely love monodraw for diagrams in documentation! All of the diagrams for Oban and Oban Pro are done this way:

Job Lifecycle: https://hexdocs.pm/oban/job_lifecycle.html

Composition: https://oban.pro/docs/pro/1.6.4/composition.html

[makeitdouble]

Sounds super interesting, where do you put these diagrams ?

It's an issue I'm seeing even for comments touching too much on algorithmic stuff. To take a somewhat common example, if you were dealing with a credit card payment flow, where would the explanation of how a transaction goes through a few states asynchronously, which all trigger a webhook callback ?

Obviously the people working on the code need to be aware of that, so documentation is somewhere needed. I've seen people put whole blocks in class headers, other sprinkle it all inside the code, personally I ended up moving it outside of the code. Where would you put it?

[Etheryte]

On one hand, this could provide a lot of value as some things are just plain hard to explain using only words. On the other hand, aren't you worried about when someone else comes along and needs to update one of those comments? If they're not aware of this tool, it's either going to be incredibly tedious or simply not going to happen.

[avinassh]

> am now always looking for more ways to include this for inline-documentation.

same lol. here is a blog post of mine where I used them - https://avi.im/blag/2024/disaggregated-storage

I had to convert them to images because I couldn't get to working with Hugo, static site generator

[larodi]

This at least 10th post of Monodraw on hn

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8433417 - oct 09 2014

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9545252 - may 14 2015

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27832910 - july 14 2021

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32134469 - july 18 2022

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39651796 - march 9 2024

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037904 - 1 year ago

and the some

all of these gained interest, so my conclusion is Monodraw benefits a lot from being regularly exposed to HN crowd.

[danmur]

It's very effective. Both times I've wanted to give them my money. But mac only, geeze

[codazoda]

It's also allowed. This is my first exposure to it, despite being a regular. Looks like a cool app.

[dang]

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Monodraw - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39651796 - March 2024 (200 comments)

Monodraw – a non-subscription, powerful ASCII art editor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32134469 - July 2022 (36 comments)

Monodraw: ASCII art editor for the Mac - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27832910 - July 2021 (102 comments)

Monodraw – macOS ASCII art editor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27778326 - July 2021 (3 comments)

Monodraw – Powerful ASCII art editor designed for the Mac - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734212 - Nov 2017 (1 comment)

Show HN: Monodraw, an ASCII Art Editor for Mac - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9545252 - May 2015 (53 comments)

Monodraw: Powerful ASCII Art Editor for Developers (Mac) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145945 - March 2015 (3 comments)

Show HN: Monodraw for Mac, ASCII Art Editor – Beta Available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9138039 - March 2015 (11 comments)

ASCII art editor designed for the Mac - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8445087 - Oct 2014 (107 comments)

[endymion-light]

Will love to buy this once I get my Mac.

Looks great, and also love the perpetual license for $9.99 rather than the host of subscription services, i'll probably end up buying it just to support good practices.

[greengreengrass]

It's one of the few pieces of software I bought a licence for, rather than tolerate free tiers or simply not use it, because I approve of the licensing model.

[__MatrixMan__]

Same here

[JKCalhoun]

That's cool … but we're calling buying an app licensing it now?

That word is a red flag for me — wondering what dark pattern is awaiting, finding myself digging for the fine print…

[mrzool]

Such an underrated app. I’ve used it for everything from network topologies and storage diagrams and even for my kitchen redesign. Works way better than every pricey specialized tool I’ve tried, and the ASCII outputs look way cooler with their old-school hacker ASCII aesthetic! Highly recommended.

[NeutralForest]

Good occasion to mention a super nice ASCII/UTF drawing library for Emacs: https://github.com/tbanel/uniline

[JohnKemeny]

Emacs has an artist-mode, you know.

[MrGilbert]

While not exactly the same use case, I'd also like to point to REXPaint [1]. Same same, but different. And Windows only, though Wine might help under Linux.

[1] https://www.gridsagegames.com/rexpaint/

[bayindirh]

I'm using this app since its first release.

It's a great simple app I use for inline comment diagrams and more importantly server login banners.

I love to login to a server with a customized banner and a tagline. It's just a small joy makes work more fun.

[thevinchi]

I’m a big fan of durdraw[1] for crafting ANSI/ASCII art in the terminal, but this takes it to a whole new level, excited to try this especially if it includes color? From the website examples it doesn’t appear to include a color palette, but if it does then game on!

[1] https://github.com/cmang/durdraw

[__bb]

This app is great for writing code comments when you hit one of those “1000 words or 1 picture” cases for an explanation of something.

Just checked and my most recent document is a diagram of data flows between two services.

Highly recommended.

[ricokatayama]

That’s great. You gained a new customer. In the prompt's and Caves of Qud 1.0 era, I'd say ASCII art is a must, both in terms of UX and aesthetic in general.

[thomascgalvin]

I use Mermaid and such for a lot of technical documentation, but this seems like it's going to be much more straightforward, especially for quick and one-off diagrams.

Very nice.

[elashri]

It seems very good, is there anything comparable for Linux?

[aaronius]

Not sure how comparable they are since I never used Monodraw due to not running MACs, but there is https://asciiflow.com/ and https://monosketch.io/ which I usually use. The latter is using some advanced UTF8 characters and when trying to get it incorporated for my personal blog, I had to use their specific monospaced font from their repo, as otherwise lines wouldn't line up correctly.

[DavidPiper]

Haven't so quickly gone from "woah, that's cool" to "purchase now" in a long time. This is awesome and I will use it daily.

There's a visual simplicity and legibility to the kind of straight-forward but slightly-decorated diagrams shown in the sample images. And the fact that I can now copy-paste them anywhere as well (rather than the classic "screenshot of a Miro or Paint.js board") is so cool.

[mafro]

Latest release Apr 2025 introduced a plain text save file format, which plays nicer for source control. Great to see development is still active.

[billyp-rva]

Accessibility question: how do screen readers handle ascii art-style diagrams like this? It seems like they would be overwhelmed by the lines.

[jen729w]

They don’t. You should aria-label it thus:

    role="img"
    aria-label="A styled box using monospace box-drawing characters. Its header is 'area complete', and there's a link to a forum post."

(Happy to be corrected/updated here, I am not an a11y expert. I am a very happy Monodraw customer though!)

[nikolayasdf123]

10 USD?

how does this compare to asciiflow.com which is free and open-source?

[milen]

Monodraw's main selling point is that it's a fully native AppKit macOS app. If you value the experience, then you might like the app.

asciiflow.com is great as well.

(Monodraw developer here)

[abm53]

The most obvious difference (and one worth much more than $10 to me) is that one is native and the other is not.

[fscaramuzza]

or even the "export to ascii" of draw.io? I would be happy to hear what the advantages could be.

[J_Shelby_J]

Can LLMs understand ascii drawings? Or produce them?

I’m trying to figure out a way to organize thoughts with charts in a way that provides useful context to an LLM and also that an LLM could theoretically generate.

[nemomarx]

I wonder how tokenizing ASCII would work - although you could try ocr?

[noosphr]

Being able to include diagrams of what code is doing _inline_ is something that is vastly over looked by the majority of developers.

It's one of the better parts of literate programming without typesetting.

[inanutshellus]

I was struggling to come up with "worth it" ASCII-art-in-code scenarios for my codebase and found a post[1] with examples (that turns out to have been posted here in HN a while back[2]). Pretty cool.

[1] https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1653 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31891226

[stevage]

>Because it's all just text

Hiding a lot of complications in that phrase. What text encoding? What font? etc.

[LandR]

Mac only ?

[mrzool]

Yes. Always nice to see good, Electron-free native apps for Mac.

[dickiedyce]

It's a really cracking little app, and great for inline docs.

[diegobit]

Seems really cool and the price is fair! I'm gonna try it!

[youcefb]

reminds me of

https://github.com/casparwylie/cascii-core

[jonpalmisc]

Monodraw is great. If I could change one thing, I would make it more expensive. $10 feels like a steal, given the use I've gotten out of it.

[durandal1]

Long time user of Monodraw, such a delightful app. My main use case is to draw view hierarchies, tables and diagrams in source comments.

[kenanfyi]

One of the coolest apps I miss after switching to Linux. I still boot my Mac to create diagrams with it every now and then.

[docandrew]

My favorite diagramming tool hands-down! It’s the only one that’s ever “clicked” for me, I use it all the time.

[waynecochran]

This is fantastic. If I can integrate it into an IDE for commenting my programs that would be next level.!

[dunsany]

Own it, love it... corporate standard is Lucidchart but prefer Monodraw.

[kotsmanis]

I have given you my money and haven’t regretted it. Nice app!

[yeliu84]

The price is so good for such an amazing app. I'm in!

[cryptos]

Great idea, but sadly only for macOS :-(

[ryanmarsh]

I really needed this 20 years ago.

[mustaphah]

Monodraw supports PNG, SVG, and ASCII. Truly universal… unless your universe happens to run Linux

[shadowgovt]

Once again, the tool that I really want to see on Linux is available on... MacOSX.

(I wonder if there is a Linux alternative? Closest thing I use is the drawing mode in emacs).

[icecheese]

You might try Durdraw. Not exactly the same as Monodraw, but it does color, utf8, animation, mouse drawing, etc, and runs in the terminal.

[psim1]

Reminiscent of TheDraw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw), a tool I used "back in the day" to create BBS artwork.

[j1000]

Wow, this is cool

[auggierose]

Really cool, and so sad at the same time.

[pjmlp]

Now, that is something really cool, pity we didn't had something like that on BBS days.

[arghgh]

Antique furniture meant something- it was done by hand.

Same with ASCii- you could respect that it took some time to make it. What respect and feeling will there be for work in the future?

Everything generated or thought cheaply generated on whims. Everything throwaway.

[myvoiceismypass]

I could have sworn I was using a tool called AcidDraw 30 years ago to design ascii bbbs login screens for use on Renegade systems.

[progforlyfe]

sign. Another macOS-only tool. Yawn