Ubuntu Manpage: cadubi - Creative ASCII Drawing Utility By Ian

NAME

       cadubi - Creative ASCII Drawing Utility By Ian

DESCRIPTION

       cadubi  is  an  application written in Perl that allows you to draw text-based images that
       are viewable on typical UNIX-based consoles. Usually the applications that  emulate  these
       consoles  support  various text modes, such as background and foreground colors, bold, and
       inverse. This text art, commonly called "ASCII art", is used in  various  places  such  as
       online BBSes, email and login prompts.

OPTIONS

       -h --help
              display some documentation

       -m --mute
              turn off beeping

       -s [ W ] [ H ]

       --size [ W ] [ H ]
              sets  the size of the console for use with cadubi, where W is number of columns and
              H is number of rows.

       -v --version
              show cadubi's version

CONFIGURING

       Beeping and command line options can be also set in /usr/bin/cadubi.

KEYBOARD

       i j k l
              Move the cursor around. Holding down shift and typing  these  keys  will  move  the
              ursor five spaces instead of one.

       space  Paint the current pen on the screen.

       return/enter
              Move the cursor down one line and all the way to the left of the console.

       delete  or  backspace  or  `
              Delete the character before the cursor.

       p      Prompt for a pen character

       f      Prompt for foreground color (see section colors).

       b      Prompt for background color (see section colors).

       g      Toggle bold mode.

       v      Toggle inverse mode.

       shift-w
              Toggle blink (highly annoying).

       t      Enter  text  mode.  This allows you to type like as if you were using a normal text
              editor, and all the characters drawn onscreen will use the same  mode  as  the  pen
              Pressing Esc will exit text mode.

       control-w
              Refresh the entire screen by redrawing each character.

       control-r
              Open a file.

       control-o
              Save the file.

       control-h
              Show the quick help screen.

       control-x
              Exit cadubi.

USING

Cadubi has a 'pen' which describes the current mode. Properties of the pen are the
painting character, foreground color, background color, bold, inverse, and blink. Whenever
you paint or use the text mode, the characters drawn on the screen will have the
properties of the pen. The current mode of the pen is shown at the bottom of the console
and is what will be drawn on screen when you paint. Typically, foreground text colors are
the same as background colors, unless the text is bold. If the text is bold, foreground
colors are usually lighter than the background color, making text easier to read when the
text has the same foreground and background color. Refer to the Quick Help (control-'h')
to see what the colors look like on your console.

Text mode is an extremely useful feature. Once in the text mode you can type as if you
were using a normal text editor, and all the characters drawn onscreen will use the same
mode as the pen. To enter text mode, press the 't' key. To exit, press escape.

When cadubi reads a file, it will only read as much that will fit in the workspace (the
area of the console minus the bottom row [status bar]). To gain more workspace, see the
'-s' operator in section "options".

Cadubi optimizes its output files to display properly and take up as little space as
possible. All cadubi output can be viewed with the 'cat' utility.

COLORS

       The color codes are case-insensitive.  The following color codes can be chosen as fore- or
       background colors:

              0 or N - Normal (standard text)

              1 or W - White

              2 or R - Red

              3 or G - Green

              4 or Y - Yellow

              5 or B - Blue

              6 or M - Magenta

              7 or C - Cyan

              8 or K - Black

WARNING

       Cadubi  uses  escape  sequences  for  things  like  color. These may differ from system to
       system. This means that the file generated by cadubi may trash your  console  when  viewed
       with  for  example cat.  It is generally safe to use the files on the same type of console
       as they were generated on.

AUTHORS

       Cadubi was created and is currently being maintained by Ian  Langworth.  Please  send  all
       questions, comments, hate mail and bug reports to ian@langworth.com