Monodraw on HackerShow

Dev tools

ascii art editor

SHOW HN2015

An ASCII Art Editor for Mac

Shown by milen on May 14, 2015. Click the card to turn it over.

141points

53comments

#151of 2,565 in 2015

Top 6%of 2015 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

20 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 5 critical, out of 37 comments about the project. Thread score +0.47.

Design: 4 for, 1 againstPricing: 2 for, 3 againstIdea: 3 for, 1 againstExecution: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 against

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

Polished, beautiful native Mac app
From 3 comments
- This is really awesome. So much quality. Upvoting.
  MyNameIsMK on HN
- Beautiful landing page!
  mikecsh on HN
- Hmm, in raw text mode, I would prefer that the text boxes have word wrap and automatic multilining, instead of the cursor hitting the border and staying there. In this way, I…
  MarkL4 on HN
Useful for ASCII diagrams in code comments
From 3 comments
- Been using the beta for a couple of months and I love the export options w/ various code comment flavors. It makes it much easier to drop in some no-so-subtle hints. For example:…
  tigeba on HN
- You actually can export a selection to the clipboard using command-c. I never use the export button, opting instead to select all with command-a then copy with command-c. Be sure…
  mminer on HN
- I've been wishing for something like this to help me draw diffable diagrams in source code comments
  monkeycantype on HN
No DRM or activation
From 1 comment
- > Monodraw does not use activation or any other form of DRM. We have complete trust in our customers. Thank you.
  ben174 on HN

Price too high for occasional use
From 4 comments
- This seems really nice (and will work well with my wiki-ing everything lately). However, as another poster pointed out, A$65 is somewhat steep for something that won't see daily…
  tonteldoos on HN
- Looks awesome! I guess my only concern is $65 AUD seems a bit high? Also, is there a specific reason why it needs 10.9+?
  empressplay on HN
- I understand your justification for the pricing but you need to be wary you don't lose too many sales by pricing too high, and $65 is too high for a casual "use it once in a…
  empressplay on HN
- I understand the reasoning, but I was going to purchase it, then saw the price, £39.99. I'd probably have bought it at £20, but for an app I'm not going to use very often £40 is…
  wmwragg on HN
Mac only, no Linux or Windows port
From 2 comments
- Any chance of a Linux/Windows port in the future? I saw this the last time it hit HN, and have hoped for something like this for other OSes.
  ajford on HN
- I really would love having such a thing for Linux.
  PythonicAlpha on HN
Limited usefulness for some users
From 1 comment
- I can see this being used for command line UIs, and maybe it would be nice for source control for some reason. Other than that, I struggle to see its usefulness, and I'm a little…
  chrisra on HN

Linux or Windows port
From 2 comments
- Any chance of a Linux/Windows port in the future? I saw this the last time it hit HN, and have hoped for something like this for other OSes.
  ajford on HN
- +1/Like/Up-vote for that.
  harel on HN
Word wrap and text flow in text boxes
From 1 comment
- Hmm, in raw text mode, I would prefer that the text boxes have word wrap and automatic multilining, instead of the cursor hitting the border and staying there. In this way, I…
  MarkL4 on HN
Re-import of ASCII diagrams
From 1 comment
- Stick with the pricing. The application is niche, and as such should have a higher price. It has been noted many times over that software has a bimodal pricing scheme - very…
  demallien on HN

Why it requires macOS 10.9+
From 1 comment
- Looks awesome! I guess my only concern is $65 AUD seems a bit high? Also, is there a specific reason why it needs 10.9+?
  empressplay on HN
How it compares to asciiflow
From 1 comment
- This seems really nice (and will work well with my wiki-ing everything lately). However, as another poster pointed out, A$65 is somewhat steep for something that won't see daily…
  tonteldoos on HN

Asciio (Perl, Linux)
From 1 comment
- If you do perl stuff there is Asciio http://search.cpan.org/dist/App-Asciio/lib/App/Asciio.pm may help on Linux. But Monodraw looks nicer and more featureful and easier to…
  blm on HN
Emacs artist mode
From 1 comment
- http://emacswiki.org/emacs/ArtistMode is clearly less featureful, but might work for less advanced use cases.
  swolchok on HN
asciiflow
From 1 comment
- The site you linked has a lot less features and a more cumbersome UI.
  fredsted on HN
ditaa
From 1 comment
- Ditaa (http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/) does drawings in a similar style, and is open source.
  jeffbarr on HN
aacircuits
From 1 comment
- Less feature rich, but handy, is a program called aacircuits, for drawing ASCII-art circuit diagrams. It dates way back to the days of Usenet. I still use it to include small…
  analog31 on HN