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       COMMENT PAGE FOR:
  HTML   Chafa: Terminal Graphics for the 21st Century
       
       
        nickdothutton wrote 1 day ago:
        I'm currently using this for a teams/zoom/meet replacement for people
        who work in the terminal. Might even make it to a Show HN some day.
       
          hpjansson wrote 1 day ago:
          This sounds amazing. I hope it does!
       
        cherrycreek00 wrote 1 day ago:
        I've been trying for like three hours to get this to show in-line
        images with w3m. Anyone got a config with that working?
       
          shiomiru wrote 1 day ago:
          w3m doesn't support chafa for inline image display.
          
          (You can set a custom w3mimgdisplay command, but it has to speak the
          same protocol as w3mimgdisplay.  If you're feeling adventurous, you
          can try modifying [1] .)
          
  HTML    [1]: https://github.com/uobikiemukot/sdump/tree/master/yaimg-sixe...
       
        mmulet wrote 1 day ago:
        I use chafa in term.everything[0], and I have nothing but good things
        to say about it! hpjansson is a great maintainer too, if anything even
        seems like it's wrong with chafa he will chime in with a fix or a
        suggestion[1] (I'm not the only one he does this with too [2][3]). I
        would definitely recommend this lib for anyone doing terminal graphics.
        
        [0] [1] /issues/5
        
        [2] [3]
        
  HTML  [1]: https://github.com/mmulet/term.everything
  HTML  [2]: https://github.com/mmulet/term.everything/issues/5
  HTML  [3]: https://lobste.rs/s/qh6lil/chafa_terminal_graphics_for_21st_ce...
  HTML  [4]: https://github.com/wong-justin/vic/issues/1#issue-2586904982
       
        gnabgib wrote 1 day ago:
        Previously in 2022 (97 points, 31 comments)
        
  HTML  [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32797681
       
        carterschonwald wrote 1 day ago:
        If you want some hilarious insanity: t try explaining ascii/terminal
        rendering to a text llm and see how it struggles
       
        jazzyjackson wrote 1 day ago:
        I learned about Chafa when I found a video editor that runs in the
        command line with keyboard control - vic - it just lets you insert
        split markers and when you exit the video is sliced up into the
        portions. I really like the low-fi nature of scrobbling through the
        video, it has low brain overhead.
        
  HTML  [1]: https://github.com/wong-justin/vic
       
          jbaber wrote 1 day ago:
          Wow.  Thanks for this recommendation!  I have multiple times
          half-baked something like this using ffmpeg to dump out thumbnails
          and make cuts.
       
        duffyjp wrote 1 day ago:
        I threw together a utility for this with just the half character in
        2018, I don't even remember why. [1] The name does imply the image
        quality, fyi.
        
        My solution is also multithreaded, in Ruby. :D
        
  HTML  [1]: https://rubygems.org/gems/barf
       
        atulvi wrote 1 day ago:
        Why can't we have proper graphics on terminal? years ago I remember
        being able to use graphics.h to draw on MS-DOS terminal and print
        letters on it (text mode).
       
          aragilar wrote 1 day ago:
          There are multiple graphics mechanisms on terminals (both real, and
          the virtual ones that have replaced them), the issue is which ones
          your terminal supports (probably none, given most terminal/libraries
          are bad at supporting features that have been around since the 80s),
          and which libraries you are using to draw them.
       
            nottorp wrote 1 day ago:
            Does any of those graphics mechanisms work over ssh?
       
              aragilar wrote 1 day ago:
              Yes, any of the inline ones should work.
       
          ilaksh wrote 1 day ago:
          Most popular terminals now have support for `kitty` graphics protocol
          which can smoothly and efficiently render raster images. So chafa is
          a way to get some backwards compatibility for some types of
          applications that want to show images but may not support that.
       
          d-lisp wrote 1 day ago:
          Did you try notcurses ? [0]
          
          [0]
          
  HTML    [1]: https://notcurses.com/
       
            busfahrer wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
            Running the included notcurses-demo on any half-modern terminal is
            really impressive:
            
  HTML      [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4lmMADP1lA
       
            aragilar wrote 1 day ago:
            notcurses is probably the best option for getting the best you can
            out of a random terminal (see [1] which details the status of most
            terminals people use), but the main thing is to choose a decent
            terminal that meets your needs. I personally use xterm (after using
            various other terminals, both "modern" and VTE-based), as I'm on
            Linux, and I need to connect to various devices (e.g. networking
            gear) where I need a reliable terminal that handles whatever those
            devices throw at it. The graphical mechanisms that work for me
            therefore are sixel and tektronic.
            
  HTML      [1]: https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/blob/master/TERM...
       
        XorNot wrote 1 day ago:
        Discovered this recently when I wanted to set my perfect retro feeling
        company logo onto the MOTD of some hardware so we'd have it on the
        serial port.
       
        n0um3n4 wrote 1 day ago:
        qué chafa!! all jokes aside, this provides infinite posibilities for
        my obsession with text-based apps/CLI.
       
          anthk wrote 1 day ago:
          For HNers, 'chafa' in Argentinian/Chilean Spanish (and a few more)
          means tacky, crude, ripoff, low quality.
       
            hpjansson wrote 1 day ago:
            'tis true.
       
        joouha wrote 1 day ago:
        I use chafa extensively, and it really is the best tool for terminal
        graphics in my opinion.
        
        I use it as a fallback option for terminals without proper terminal
        graphics support in my TUI Jupyter client, euporie.
        
        There are Python bindings available:
        
  HTML  [1]: https://github.com/GuardKenzie/chafa.py
       
          Abishek_Muthian wrote 1 day ago:
          Have you tried Charmbracelet's bubble tea -
          
  HTML    [1]: https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea
       
            nairadithya wrote 1 day ago:
            BubbleTea is great, but it doesn't have support for Kitty Graphics.
            
  HTML      [1]: https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/issues/163
       
          lawlessone wrote 1 day ago:
          i'm curious do you work entirely with a terminal and no desktop?
          
          Chafa looks cool, i'd feel cool using it when i use a terminal but if
          really wanted to see an image id just open it in a image viewer.
       
          tasuki wrote 1 day ago:
          > and it really is the best tool for terminal graphics in my opinion
          
          Not sixel or kitty graphics?
       
            mmulet wrote 1 day ago:
            One of the really cool things about chafa is that it has both sixel
            and kitty graphic renderers! (and iterm2 images as well) So you can
            output kitty if the terminal supports it, but fall back to ascii if
            it doesn’t.
       
            robot-wrangler wrote 1 day ago:
            Setting aside the usual compatibility issues with those things..
            neither are available from your buildbot. Also while Jupyter does
            supports images other notebooking ecosystems may not, and anyway
            you need a file whereas chafa can work with streams.
       
            hecanjog wrote 1 day ago:
            What interests me about it is the unicode mosaic output format that
            looks higher quality than the usual upper half block or braille
            character approaches without needing to support a special protocol.
       
          wonger_ wrote 1 day ago:
          And JS bindings: [1] And I'm half-working on Rust bindings...
          
  HTML    [1]: https://github.com/hectorm/chafa-wasm
       
            hectorm wrote 1 day ago:
            Author of the JS bindings here. I also have a browser demo:
            
  HTML      [1]: https://ansi-o-matic.molinero.dev
       
       
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