Yeah I've used it to do some inline comments a few times and am really happy with how it turned out. Even though it still is a bit clunky I like how you can import back your diagram if you needed to change something small.

I would probably use something else when modelling a solution but sometimes it really is best to keep the documentation as close as possible to the source.

The answer at the very bottom does include a browser-based link to do this: https://dot-to-ascii.ggerganov.com/

Seems to work well..!

Prior version was better. So much so that I had to stop using the current version. That said, for what they charge I shouldn't complain and appreciate their help over the years.

huh. I only know the new one. I like it fine. Now I have to see what I'm missing!

There's a return to old version link https://asciiflow.com/legacy/

I appreciate the ability to select and move already drawn components, I believe this was missing in the original version which kept me from using it. Thanks team!

However, this is an amazing ascii drawing tool!

It could be useful for quickly designing an IoT lcd display layout... but, maybe I'm missing a config option, why doesn't it display the x,y size of the object you're drawing/modifying (i.e. as a tooltip or a properties box)?? Seems like such a basic feature.

Double tap and drag. As in tap-and-release, then tap-and-hold.

Nice tool, is easily to understand and very intuitive

If I understand correctly:

1, proprietary binary, it's not plain text, can't be diff'd doesn't compress as well as plain text at least.

2. files are stored on Figma's servers and I'm bound to their storage and versioning infrastructure.

on plantuml you can specify if the class should be placed, left, right, top, bottom. That helped me a lot.

Exactly. My only issue is that if I have a high level diagram and create sub diagrams, then the sub diagrams look very different due to their own layout. But the time save is huge.

This is another reason I have settled on Markdown, R Markdown driven documentation and even presentation. The 2 dimensional presentation created via Markdown and Revealjs is much faster and looks great and best of all it forces you to limit how much content to write in a slide and I don’t have to worry about layout.

Agreed! In my world of Asic design, I use Wavedrom[1] and Latex/LyX with tikz-timing[2] to make drawing timing diagrams less painful and more predictable and good looking to. Bonus, as you mentioned, they are source based text, and so can be committed in the repo.

[1] https://wavedrom.com/

[2] http://bakoma-tex.com/doc/latex/tikz-timing/tikz-timing.pdf

I wish they would continue support monodraw :/ how do you use it for us mockups?

When you export the drawing (click the button in the upper left then click the download icon to the right of File), there is an option to us "ASCII Basic".

Some past related threads:

Asciiflow in VS Code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22840295 - April 2020 (23 comments)

ASCIIFlow Infinity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16051428 - Jan 2018 (56 comments)

ASCIIFlow Infinity – ASCII diagrams with export - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9130756 - March 2015 (10 comments)

AsciiFlow Infinity: Powerful In-Browser ASCII Art Editor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7560599 - April 2014 (7 comments)

Asciiflow - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7085133 - Jan 2014 (69 comments)

Asciiflow - ASCII Flow Diagram Tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365612 - Sept 2013 (1 comment)

Asciiflow - ASCII Flow Diagram Tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3598177 - Feb 2012 (9 comments)

AsciiFlow - diagram & wireframe tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2847177 - Aug 2011 (20 comments)

ASCII diagram creator - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651745 - June 2011 (39 comments)

M-x artist-mode <ret> in Emacs is pretty cool. Also picture-mode.

http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_ascii_diagram.html

    ┌───┐
    │   │
    │   │
    │ I │
    │ N │
    │   │
    │   │
    └─┬─┘
      │           ┌───────────┐
      │           │           │
      └───────────►    OUT    │
                  │           │
                  └───────────┘

OK. Works.

I spend so much time drawing diagrams that I’ve stopped trying to make them pretty and now I just try to make them meaningful and accurate. So for in-code docs ASCIIFlow is great. I still struggle trying to find an architectural diagram tool that’s not junk. We use Rational and it’s fine. But I’d like something nicer and with a more 3D view.

I'm one of the maintainers for ASCIIFlow (though not the original creator). I can try to answer any questions you have. Weird to see it on the front page :D

In case you haven't heard of it yet, check out https://excalidraw.com/ for an alternative non-ASCII diagramming tool.

These things are great for illustration purposes, when one uses something like Markdown or the like. This, paired with a tool, that draws trees (filesystem, etc.). But I'd prefer this part of my text-editor than online.

Is it based on perl based tool Asciio https://metacpan.org/pod/App::Asciio

I couldn't get it working on windows but it looks interesting and it's very old.

so old and often posted

Good discussion here 10 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651745