NAME
	asciifig - Draw plain-text ascii figures

SYNOPSYS
	asciifig [file]

DESCRIPTION

Draw figures using only plain ascii characters.  Use the numeric
keypad to move in 8 directions.  Change mode to either draw, erase or
just move.  The appropriate characters (-, |, /, \, ...) are
automatically chosen depending on wether the neigbouring characters
are also drawn.

Type ? for a description of keys.

Arrows and numeric keypad moves the cursor (also diagonal).  Also
draws or erases depending on the current mode.

 D	Draw mode
 W	Move mode
 E 	Erase mode
 I	Input text
 M	Set mark (for copying)
 C, K	"Cut", "Kill" rectangle from mark to cursor position
 P, Y	"Paste", "Yank" at cursor position (carefull!)
 L	Center figure
 S	Save file
 Q	Quit


MOTIVATION

The plain ascii text format is definitly the most compatible,
reliable, robust, simple and small format to communicate
electronically.  While it is quite sufficient for text, figures are
often needed as well.

Although the ascii character set was not designed for it, quite nice
figures can be drawn with it, known as "ascii-art".  However creating
ascii art with a regular editor is a labor-intensive task.

Since I don't knew of any tool to easily draw figures (emacs'
picture-mode is the closest), I wrote this one.  A good ascii back-end
for nroff that handles pic macro's would also be nice.

By this program, I hope to convince people not to revert to fancy
drawing programs and heavy (proprietry) file formats, when they just
want to include a small diagram in their email.


INSTALLING

Any Unix or Cigwin/Windows should work. 

Requires ncurses.

If you're lucky, just type 'make', otherwise tweak the (one-line)
Makefile.  Tested under FreeBSD and Solaris.


AUTHOR

Wim Livens <wim at livens dot net> http://wim.livens.net/


HISTORY 

1999-06-26 (late night) Only moving and drawing, |\/- chars are
automatically chosen.

1999-06-27 deleting, status line, check outside screen, save/load file
cut/paste region, center figure, enter text.

1999-06-28 move mode instead of shift-keypad, that's less confortable
but more portable. I can't get the keybinding properly configured
under X, so I assume users won't either, so I make my program very
robust. It should work at least with TERM=xterm.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Huh? what's that ?  Do with it what ever you want but keep my name
somewhere.  I've wrote this both for fun and because I needed it.  So
if you make any improvements, I like to get them too!