release

Ascgen dotNET 0.9.6 released 8

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen bugfix preview release on by

** Download it 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.

Ascgen dotNET 0.9.5 released – Dithering and more 4

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen dithering release translation visual studio on by

** Download it here **

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.
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Ascii Generator dotNET 0.9.1 released 12

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen bugfix release software update on by

Bug fix (which has literally been there forever), plus a whole new way of choosing how to save the files.

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.

Ascii Generator dotNET 0.9.0 Released! 4

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen release software update on by

Download it 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

Ascii Generator dotNET Beta 8.1 released 4

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen release settings on by

Download it here

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

Beta 8.0 released 5

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen preview print release on by

Download it here

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:
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Beta 7.2 released

This entry was posted in Releases and tagged ascgen release on by

Download it here

Changes:
Changed rtf output to be ASCII instead of Unicode/UTF to make them work in other programs
Added automatic version checking against the sourceforge website
Added “check for new versions?” bool to the variables and settings file
Moved the version number into a structure instead of one variable
Moved most effects applied to the output into classes
Moved apply convolution matrix function into the ConvolutionMatrix structure
Moved ascii conversion related files into a new folder
Changed solution to compile without warnings in Visual C# Express
Added “Copy Ramp to Clipboard” to the edit menu
Moved ramp menu items into a sub-menu
Moved font related menu items into a sub-menu
Batch Conversion/Settings:
– Restored missing resource string for Auto button/right click menu
– Changed auto button right-click menu to a menustrip
– Fixed problem with disabled Ok button when the regional settings decimal symbol isn’t “.”
– Added setting backcolor of an invalid textbox to red
– Fixed tab order
– Fixed problems with invalid character sizes being allowed

Beta 7.1 released 6

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Download it here

Changes:
Removed “Force Greyscale” option when saving images, and set it to always output greyscale
Added “Font…” to the edit menu
Added “+” to the center of the selected area when moving it
Fixed pictures not being released after they have been loaded
Fixed brightness/contrast not being applied to the colours when saving as a colour image
Fixed saving as html/colour text with ansi and other non-standard characters
Small improvement to outputted css