Usage

Many of the Asciiville features and facilities work perfectly well with both fixed and variable width fonts. However, Ascii Art and graphics are best viewed using a Monospaced or “fixed-width” font such as “Courier”, “Lucida Console”, “Monaco”, “Consolas”, “Inconsolata”, or “Monospace Regular”. Variable width fonts can interfere with the intended display of Ascii Art.

The Asciiville package creates an “Asciiville” profile in the gnome-terminal and tilix terminal emulators to configure use of a Monospaced font as well as invoking kitty and xfce4-terminal with a Monospaced font. The asciiville command attempts to ensure the use of a Monospaced font where it is possible but options do exist for the Asciiville user to use whatever the current terminal window might be. In this case, “Use Current Terminal”, the Asciiville user may need to manually configure the terminal window for Monospaced font use.

When viewing Ascii Art in non-slideshow mode, for example if asciiville were invoked with ascii art filenames as arguments, the user can enter ‘z’ or ‘b’ followed by ‘Return’ to enter “zoom/browse” mode. In this mode the user can zoom in and out of the ascii art. Use the following key presses to navigate in zoom/browse mode:

• ‘i’ zoom in

• ‘j’ zoom in more

• ‘n’ zoom in even more

• ‘o’ zoom out

• ‘k’ zoom out more

• ‘m’ zoom out even more

• ‘r’ restore to original

• ‘h’ display a help message

• ‘q’ or ‘x’ to exit zoom/browse mode

In addition, in non-slideshow mode the user can enter ‘s’ or ‘S’ followed by ‘Return’ to enter info “slideshow” mode. In slideshow mode the ascii art is displayed for a few seconds then the next file is displayed. No user interaction is possible during slideshow mode other than ‘Ctrl-c’ to exit.

Usage message for the asciiville command

The usage message for asciiville provides a brief summary of the command line options:

Usage: asciiville [-a] [-A] [-b] [-c command] [-C] [-d] [-D delay]
	[-E len] [-f] [-F] [-g] [-i] [-I] [-jJ] [-k] [-l] [-L level]
	[-m] [-M] [-N] [-n num] [-p] [-P script] [-r] [-R] [-s song]
	[-S] [-t] [-T] [-U] [-v] [-V show] [-w] [-W] [-x] [-X] [-y]
	[-Y] [-z] [-Z] [-u] [file1 [file2 ...]]

Terminal/Command options:
	-c 'command' indicates use 'command'
		If 'command' is keyword 'endo' then display ascii fluid simulation
		If 'command' is keyword 'maps' then display a map using mapscii
		If 'command' is keyword 'moon' then display the phase of the Moon
		If 'command' is keyword 'news' then display RSS news feeds
		If 'command' is keyword 'reddit' then display Reddit terminal UI
		If 'command' is keyword 'search' then a web search is performed
		If 'command' is keyword 'speed' then a speed test is performed
		If 'command' is keyword 'translate' then the translation tool is run
		If 'command' is keyword 'twitter' then a Twitter client is run
		If 'command' is keyword 'weather' then display a weather report
		Otherwise, 'command' will be executed in a terminal window
	-d indicates use disk usage analyzer as default command
	-f indicates use cbftp/ncftp as the default command
	-F indicates fullscreen display
	-g indicates use gnome terminal emulator
	-i indicates start asciiville in interactive mode
	-I indicates display system info
	-l indicates use lynx web browser as the default command
	-L 'level' lolcat coloring level
	   'level' can be '0' (off), '1' (on), or '2' (animate)
	-r indicates use retro terminal emulator
	-t indicates use tilix terminal emulator
	-U indicates set command to Ninvaders
	-w indicates use w3m web browser as the default command
	-W indicates use cmatrix as the default command
	-x indicates use xfce4 terminal emulator
	-X indicates run commands in current terminal window
	-y indicates use ranger file manager as the default command
	-Y indicates use NetHack dungeon game as the default command
	-z indicates use neomutt email client as the default command
Slideshow/ASCIImatics animation options:
	-A indicates use Asciiville scenes in ASCIImatics display
	-a indicates play audio during display
	-b indicates use backup audio during display
	-C indicates cycle slideshow endlessly (Ctrl-c to exit show)
	-D 'delay' specifies delay, in seconds, between art display (default 5)
	-E 'len' indicates random slideshow of length 'len' (0 infinite)
	-j indicates use Julia Set scenes in ASCIImatics display
	-J indicates Julia Set with several runs using different parameters
	-m indicates use MusicPlayerPlus scenes in ASCIImatics display
	-M indicates use MusicPlayerPlus MPD client as default command
	-n num specifies the number of times to cycle ASCIImatics scenes
	-N indicates use alternate comments in Plasma ASCIImatics scenes
	-p indicates use Plasma scenes in ASCIImatics display
	-P script specifies the ASCIImatics script to run
	-s 'song' specifies a song to accompany an ASCIImatics animation
	   'song' can be the full pathname to an audio file or a relative
	   pathname to an audio file in the MPD music library or ~/Music/
	-S indicates display ASCIImatics splash animation
	-V 'show' displays an ascii art slide show
	   'show' can be one of 'Art', 'Doctorwhen', 'Dragonflies',
	   'Fractals', 'Friends', 'Iterated', 'Lyapunov', 'Nature',
	   'Owls', 'Space', 'Vintage', 'Wallpapers', 'Waterfalls',
	   the name of a custom ascii art folder, the slideshow keyword
	   'files' which indicates display a slideshow using the ascii
	   art files provided on the command line, or the slideshow
	   argument 'files=/path/to/file' which indicates read the list
	   of slideshow files from the file '/path/to/file'
	-Z indicates do not play audio during slideshow/animation

General options:
	-k indicates kill Asciiville tmux sessions and ASCIImatics scripts
	-R indicates record tmux session with asciinema
	-T indicates use a tmux session for either ASCIImatics or command
	-v displays the Asciiville version and exits
	-u displays this usage message and exits

Remaining arguments are filenames of ascii art to display
	Ascii art filenames can be relative to the Ascii Art Gallery folder
	and need not specify the filename suffix. For example:
		asciiville -L 2 Friends/tux Doctorwhen/Capitola_Village_Vivid

Invoked without any arguments, 'asciiville' will display an interactive menu

Usage message for the show_ascii_art command

Usage: show_ascii_art [-a art[,art2,...]] [-A art_dir] [-b] [-B] [-c] [-C]
	[-d font_dir] [-D seconds] [-e term] [-E] [-F large_font] [-f small_font]
	[-g] [-i image] [-I input_dir] [-O output_dir] [-K fifo_name] [-l level]
	[-L] [-n tabs] [-N depth] [-o] [-p palette] [-P] [-q] [-r] [-R len]
	[-s show] [-S song] [-t first_text] [-T second_text]
	[-h height] [-w width] [-W] [-v] [-z] [-Z] [-u]
Where:
	-a 'art' specifies ascii art file(s) to display
		multiple files are separated by a comma with no spaces
		(e.g. '-a Friends/tux,Doctorwhen/Capitola_Village_Vivid')
		'art' can be the relative path to a file in:
			/usr/share/asciiville/art
		or the path to a file, with or without file extension
	-A 'art_dir' specifies the path to the ascii art folder
	-b when generating ascii art use a border
	-B use backup song when playing audio in slideshows
	-c cycle slideshow endlessly (Ctrl-c to exit show)
	-C center ascii art on screen if border detected
	-d 'font_dir' specifies the path to the figlet fonts
	-D 'seconds' specifies the delay, in seconds, between screens
	-e 'term' specifies the terminal in which execution occurs
		'term' can be one of 'gnome', 'xfce4', or 'tilix'
	-E disables font size changing
	-g convert image to grayscale
	-i 'image' specifies an image file to convert to ascii art
	-I 'input_dir' generates ascii art from all images in 'input_dir'
		and saves them in the directory specified with '-O output_dir'
		(defaults to current directory if '-O output_dir' is specified)
	-K 'fifo_name' use a FIFO to communicate back to caller when done
	-l 'level' use lolcat coloring, 'level' can be '1' or '2' (animate)
	-L lists the ascii art in the 'art_dir' and exits
	-f 'small_font' specifies the figlet font to use for small text
	-F 'large_font' specifies the figlet font to use for large text
	-n 'tabs' specifies the number of tabs to indent image display
	-N 'depth' specifies the color depth
		'depth' can be '4' (for ANSI), '8' (for 256 color palette)
		or '24' (for truecolor or 24-bit color)
	-o indicates overwrite any existing ascii art when saving
	-O 'output_dir' generates ascii art from all images in the
		directory specified with '-I' and saves them in 'output_dir'
	-P indicates play audio during slideshow
	-p 'palette' specifies which character set to use for ascii art
		'palette' can be one of 'def', 'long', 'rev', 'longrev'
		'def' is the default set, 'long' a long set,
		'rev' reverses default, 'longrev' reverses long
		Any other argument to '-p' will be taken as the character set
	-q don't display text, just the ascii art
	-r indicates select random fonts
	-R 'len' indicates random slideshow of length 'len' (0 'len' infinite show)
	-s 'show' slide show of ascii art
		'show' can be:
			'Art', 'Doctorwhen', 'Dragonflies', 'Fractals', 'Friends', 'Iterated'
			'Lyapunov', 'Nature', 'Owls', 'Space', 'Wallpapers', 'Waterfalls'
		or a custom folder name (with '-A art_dir')
	-S 'song' use 'song' as audio track
	-t 'first_text' specifies the first text to display
	-T 'second_text' specifies the second text to display
	-u displays this usage message and exits
	-h 'height' specifies the height of the converted ascii art
	-w 'width' specifies the width of the converted ascii art
		If only one of 'width' and 'height' is provided,
		calculate the other from image aspect ratio
	-W indicates do not wait for input to continue viewing ascii art
	-v indicates view ascii art and prompt to continue
	-Z indicates no ANSI escape sequences used in ascii art
	-z indicates save converted image ascii art in art_dir

Usage message for the asciisplash command

Usage: asciisplash [-A] [-a] [-b] [-C] [-c num] [-d] [-jJ] [-m] [-p] [-s song] [-u]
Where:
	-A indicates use all effects
	-a indicates play audio during ASCIImatics display
	-b indicates use backup audio during ASCIImatics display
	-C indicates use alternate comments in Plasma effect
	-c num specifies the number of times to cycle
	-d indicates enable debug mode
	-j indicates use Julia Set effect
	-J indicates Julia Set with several runs using different parameters
	-m indicates use Asciiville effect
	-p indicates use Plasma effect
	-s song specifies the audio file to play as accompaniment
		'song' can be the full pathname to an audio file or a relative
		pathname to an audio file in the MPD music library or
		$HOME/Music/
	-u displays this usage message and exits