Release notes

Table of contents

Overview
Installation
Configuration
Usage
Removal
Changelog

Overview

Asciiville provides utilities, tools, applications, games, and scripts to create a rich text-based command line environment enabling the creation of Ascii Art, viewing the included Ascii Art galleries, creating your own custom Ascii Art galleries, and much more. See the Asciiville README for an overview of supported features.

Architecture independent native installation packages are provided for Arch Linux, Debian based Linux systems, and RPM based Linux systems. Compressed tar archives and an installation script are provided for all other platforms.

Asciiville 3.0.2 and later have the option to utilize Homebrew to install packages during ascinit post installation initialization. To use Homebrew, invoke ascinit brew on Linux platforms. Homebrew is the default on Apple macOS.

Installation

Download the latest Arch, Debian, or RPM package format release for your platform. If your platform does not support Arch, Debian, or RPM format installs (e.g. Apple macOS) then download the compressed binary distribution archive for your platform and the Install-bin.sh script.

Installation on macOS must be performed using the manual installation described below.

Arch Linux based installation

Install the package on Arch Linux based systems by executing the command:

sudo pacman -U ./Asciiville_3.0.2-1-any.pkg.tar.zst

Debian based installation

Install the package on Debian based systems by executing the commands:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt install ./Asciiville_3.0.2-1.deb

Similarly, on a Raspberry Pi:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt install ./Asciiville_3.0.2-1.deb

RPM based installation

Install the package on RPM based systems by executing the command

sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf localinstall ./Asciiville-3.0.2-1.rpm

Manual installation

On systems for which the Arch, Debian, or RPM packages will not suffice, install manually either by cloning the repository or by downloading the Install-bin.sh script and the gzip’d distribution archive.

Asciiville can be installed by cloning the repository and executing the Install script:

git clone https://github.com/doctorfree/Asciiville
cd Asciiville
./Install

Alternatively, after downloading the installation script and distribution archive, as a user with sudo privilege execute the commands:

chmod 755 Install-bin.sh
sudo ./Install-bin.sh /path/to/Asciiville_3.0.2-1.<arch>.tgz

For example, to install Asciiville version 3.0.2 release 1 on Apple macOS using the installation script and archive previously downloaded to $HOME/Downloads/:

chmod 755 ~/Downloads/Install-bin.sh
sudo ~/Downloads/Install-bin.sh ~/Downloads/Asciiville_3.0.2-1.Darwin.tgz

After successfully installing Asciiville, as a normal user run the ascinit command to initialize Asciiville. [Note:] Run the ascinit command as the user who will be using asciiville. No sudo is needed, just ascinit.

Configuration

REQUIRED: execute the ascinit command to initialize mutt/neomutt, tmux, ranger, rainbowstream, and install terminal emulators
- The ascinit command should be executed as a normal user with sudo privilege
  - ascinit # (not ‘sudo ascinit’)
- Execute ascinit -c rather than ascinit if no terminal emulators or graphical utilities are desired
OPTIONAL: authorize the command line Twitter client by executing rainbowstream

See the Asciiville README for additional configuration info.

Usage

Execute man asciiville to view the asciiville manual page. Explore the features and capabilities of asciiville by running it in interactive menu mode with the command:

asciiville

Asciiville is a suite of character based utilities, art, and animation. As such, it is intended for use in a terminal window from the command line. To view some of the ASCII animation capabilities provided in Asciiville, try the ASCIImatics animations. For example:

asciisplash -a -i

Removal

Removal of the package on Arch Linux based systems can be accomplished by issuing the command:

sudo pacman -Rs asciiville

Removal of the package on Debian based systems can be accomplished by issuing the command:

sudo apt remove asciiville

Removal of the package on RPM based systems can be accomplished by issuing the command:

sudo dnf remove Asciiville

On systems for which the manual installation was performed using the Install-bin.sh script, remove Asciiville manually by downloading the Uninstall-bin.sh script and, as a user with sudo privilege, execute the commands:

chmod 755 Uninstall-bin.sh
sudo ./Uninstall-bin.sh

Note that manual removal of Asciiville using the Uninstall-bin.sh script will not remove any of the dependencies manually installed above. Manual installation and removal of Asciiville is not as robust as packaged installation and removal. Hopefully additional platform packaging will be available in the future. If you would like to assist with this effort, see the ‘Contributing’ section of the Asciiville README.

Changelog

Asciiville Version 3 adds support for:

Automated Neovim installation and configuration
Install and use Brew on all platforms
Automatic installation of many Ascii games
Improved interactive menu system
Add a to interactive art view mode to auto zoom
Add d to interactive art view mode to set default art font size
Add f keyboard control for display of ascii art filename
Add zoom_depth and zoom_interval settings in config and ascii art menu
Asciiville is now architecture independent
Many installation improvements on Apple macOS
Move btop to external package install
Move cbftp to external package install
Move endoh1 to external package install
Add term-image command - display and browse images in the terminal
Move installation location back to /usr except macOS to /usr/local
Improved support for macOS manual installation
Moved several package/utility installs from postinstall to ascinit
Several bug fixes

See CHANGELOG.md for a full list of changes in every Asciiville release