*** Download here ***

Here are the main changes:
- Complete rewrite of almost the entire code-base into cleaner, more readable and modular code.
- The conversion process has been optimized at every step, with a big overall speed increase.
- The input image has moved from the main panel into a new widget, plus lots of other UI changes.
- Batch conversion has been completely rewritten with a new and more usable interface.
- The settings form and the whole settings system have been rewritten, and it now automatically saves to a new data file when you press ok.
- Several memory leaks have been fixed, as have all known bugs.
- Added support for handling multiple translation files.

Click here for the full and scary change log: Ascgen 2.0 Changes. Some of the things were changed and rewritten multiple times since the last version, but I’ve gone through and I think it’s more or less correct now.

Also, you may have noticed that this site has had a nice revamp and clean-up. The tutorial is up to date and the faq page has been rewritten using a nice plugin. Please let me know if you have question that isn’t covered: FAQ. Also screenshots!

Please let people know about this release. This project will only continue forward if it gets enough support, so it would be great if you used the sharing buttons just below this post. Donating a couple of $ would also be greatly appreciated.

Translation files page:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=133786&package_id=284594

Direct links to the cvs:
Russian
Ukrainian

To use them, just download the file and place it in the same directory as the Ascii Generator executable (only have one translation file there at a time or it won’t work).

If you would like to translate the program into another language, please download this file, and edit the strings between the “value” tags. You can contact me here.

I was waiting until I’d finished rewriting one of the controls, but I just had a pretty huge crash bug pointed out to me.

Added a form to preview the colour output
Added menu item to change the position of the image and text frames from horizontal to vertical
Added automatically choosing the panels orientation layout from the screen size
Changed main form to access the RichTextBox through an interface
Moved interfaces into their own namespace
Fixed being unable to save variable width font conversions as an image

If you do see something obviously wrong, please report it on the sourceforge page (“Help/Report a bug…”). You don’t have to have an account there and you can do it anonymously.

Internal design changes, and some cool new stuff.

Dithering
Thanks to an great idea sent to me through sourceforge, the program now comes with the ability to run a dithering filter over the output.

Why would you want this? Well, the text output is like having an image with a small palette of colours. Adding noise to the output helps to blend the different greyscale colours together and produces a result that is (hopefully) more pleasing the eye. There’s also a random element which weights the dithering and helps hide the pattern.

Check out the wikipedia article for more information on the theory behind this topic.

Translation file changes
The program will now automatically load a translation file if one (and only one) is in the same directory as the executable. The filename has to be in the format translation.*.xml with * being the language code (although at the moment it doesn’t matter what you put there). For an example, here’s the American translation file: translation.en-us.xml

The full list of untranslated strings is here:
http://ascgen2.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/ascgen2/ascgen2/translation.xml

Text Widget
The brightness/contrast and levels widgets have been merged into one new widget, using tabs to switch between them and a new control for adjusting the dithering levels.

Visual Studio 2008
The codebase has been moved to the new Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, so you’ll need that if you want to compile the source code yourself. The executable is still being targeted at .Net 2.0 so hopefully there shouldn’t be any difference (I can’t see any good reason to change it to the latest .Net yet).

Full change log:
Fixed extra characters being added to colour rtf files in some font sizes
Added automatic loading of a translation file (translation.?.xml) if one is present
Added a basic dithering filter to the output
Changed Ascii filters to implement an interface rather then inheriting a class
Added specialized interfaces for the filters
Moved brightness/contrast and levels into one widget
Improved the levels control
Stopped brightness/contrast accepting clicks from anything other than the left mouse button
Stopped brightness/contrast control updating the output twice on reset or image load
Added new control for dithering level and dithering random level to the text widget
Added loading and saving the dithering values to the settings file
Changed text widget to implement the brightness-contrast/levels/dither interfaces
Changed brightness-contrast widget to implement the brightness-contrast interfaces
Made main form access the widgets through their interfaces rather then directly
Moved code development to Visual Studio 2008
Fixed processing the conversion twice during image load

Download it here

Changes:
Added toolstrip with buttons to rotate and flip the input image
Replaced the different save menu items with a dialog
Set Accept (enter) and Cancel (escape) buttons for edit settings and text magnification forms
Fixed ctrl codes being enabled/disabled when they shouldn't be if the menu hasn't been opened

Translation file changes are here.

Check out the previous post for details about how to translate the program into other languages. If you do a translation, please let me know so I can add it for other people to use.

Changes:
Improved speed of applying convolution matrix (used in output filters)
Added saving to an image with colour
For images with transparency, the transparent area is now black if output was inverted on load
Changed to no longer prompt to save after saving as an image
Added colour print and print preview
Added loading resource strings from an xml file
Added translation filename to the variables and settings file
Added form to change some basic settings in the program
Improved speed of automatically generating ascii ramps
Moved updating the settings into the Variables class
Moved processing xml nodes into a new class
Added saving as a nfo file
Localized the batch conversion log
Removed depreciated Hidden property from the widgets
Moved saving the settings into the Variables class
Changed the settings file to read and write to settings.xml
Fixed Ramp dropdown box being cut off
Moved Brightness/Contrast controls into a separate control
Replaced brightness/contrast textboxes with numeric up down boxes
Added saving as colour text and images in a batch conversion
Added a menu item to check for a new version
Fixed current output directory changing back to the default directory after saving
Added right-click menu item to reset the brightness/contrast widgets

I also made a ton of code changes to improve how things are structured.

Download it here

Full list of changes:


0.8.2:
Added DrawText function with a offset parameter
Moved Image to Values, Image to Colors and Text to Image into separate classes
Moved values to text conversion classes into separate files
Cleaned up TextProcessingSettings
Moved applying the filters from TextProcessingSettings into the AscgenConverter
Moved filter list creation to a property in TextProcessingSettings, and only recreated when needed
Cleaned up ConvolutionMatrix and changed Apply to be a non-static function
Moved applying a ConvolutionMatrix for a filter into a new subclass inherited by blur and sharpen
Fixed error in the application of the ConvolutionMatrix
Moved applying the ConvolutionMatrix values into a loop
Fixed filters not being applied to the edges of the output
Optimized unsharp mask a little
Changed to only create static filters once
Required a factor in the ConvolutionMatrix constructor, and added a default constructor


0.8.2a:
Fixed batch conversion ramp not being auto generated
Fixed freeze on width or height less then 2


Changes:
Added maximum width and height to the variables and settings file
Restored clicking and dragging outside the image to start selection
Added checkbox, menu item and F12 shortcut to toggle image visibility
Added link to the tutorials page
Added the currently open filename to the title
Added dragging and dropping an image onto the RichTextBox to load it
Added pressing escape while dragging/moving selection rectangle to cancel changes
Cleaned up and refactored JMSelectablePictureBox a little
Added holding shift while selecting to constrain it to a perfect square

I’ve also updated the tutorial for the new interface:
http://ascgendotnet.jmsoftware.co.uk/ascgen-dotnet-tutorial-1-creating-an-ascii-image

I’ve gotten rid of the tabs, and put the input and output images on the same bit so they’re both viewable all the time. I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks, and you get used to it.

Added printing and print preview. Currently it prints to one page, and uses as much of the paper as available.

Right click on the input image, and you can rotate and flip it.

Full changes:

New Features:
Added ability to print the text image
Added print preview and page setup
Moved image and text out of the tabs and into a split panel control
Added rotating the input image by 90/180/270 degrees
Added flipping the input image horizontally and vertically

Fixes/code changes:
Fixed potential problem with version checking order
Changed picturebox SelectedChanged event to only fire after the selection has finished changing
Added picturebox SelectionChanging event to fire while the selected area is changing
Cleaned up and reorganized WidgetBrightnessContrast class
Added RotateImage(RotateFlipType) to the JMPictureBox
Fixed being able to access output menu when it is disabled
Fixed selection being lost in some cases after clicking outside the image
Moved output unsharp/sharpening/blur into separate filter classes
Moved output filters into an arraylist

Download it here

Fixed crash on '&' in generated ramps (thanks Anonymous)
Moved html/rtf creation into a separate class
Fixed xhtml character encoding, and specified it in the file