drawing for text-afficionados
Drawskrit is a description language for simple drawings and diagrams.
- a Drawskrit drawing is grid-based
- every line of text specifies a row of the grid
- every shape specifies a column of the grid
- everything before a shape describes the shape (but see meta instructions)
- shapes resize depending on the total number of rows / columns (but see layers)
- all description is case-insensitive
- lines are stripped, i.e. leading and trailing whitespace is removed before the line is processed
A single empty circle filling the whole drawing:
circle
A red circle:
red circle
A filled red circle:
filled red circle
Four colored squares:
filled red square filled green square
filled blue square filled yellow square
Shapes are the main drawing instructions. Some of the shapes can be specified not only by their name, but also by an equivalent "symbol" (which can be made up by one or more characters).
The supported shapes are:
| Shape | Symbol |
|---|---|
circle |
o |
square |
# |
rectangle |
[] |
ellipse |
() |
triangle |
/\ |
line |
- |
blank |
_ |
The purpose of blank is to add invisible shapes to the grid in order to resize and position the other shapes as required.
Text specified in single or double quotes is considered to be a text label. It occupies a cell just like shapes.
The text Drawskrit :
"Drawskrit"
A natural number specified before a shape multiplies that shape the respective number of times.
Draw four red circles:
4 red circles
Notice that all shapes can also be specified in their plural form.
Multiple shapes can be drawn within the same cell. For this they are joined together using the on specifier.
Draw a tiny filled red triangle on a small green circle on a big blue square:
filled shapes
tiny red triangle on small green circle on big blue square
Shapes can be specified with various properties in order to change their color, size, filling and line style.
The order in which shape properties are specified is irrelevant. In case two competing properties are specified for the same shape, the last one (i.e. the one closest to the shape) wins.
Valid color specifiers are:
- aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, orange, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow.
Valid size specifiers are:
| Size | % of cell width / height |
|---|---|
tiny |
25% |
small |
50% |
big |
85% |
huge |
100% |
In case no size is specified shapes are drawn with 75% of a cell's width / height.
Valid line styles are:
solid(default)dotteddashed
Valid line widths are:
| Line width | No. pixels |
|---|---|
thin (default) |
1 |
thick |
4 |
fat |
8 |
Adding the filled specifier before a shape will fill the respective shape.
Text alignment can be controlled with the following properties:
| Property | Alignment |
|---|---|
| left | align horizontally to the left of the middle |
| center | align horizontally centered |
| right | align horizontally to the right of the middle |
| top | align vertically to the top of the middle |
| middle | align vertically centered |
| bottom | align vertically to the bottom of the middle |
Lines starting with ; (semicolon) are considered to be comments and are ignored.
There are three special instructions that have an effect on all shapes that are specified after them:
The background meta instruction defines the background color of all the rows following its specification.
2 circles above 3 squares on green background:
green background
2 circles
3 squares
2 circles on green background above 3 squares on lime background:
green background 2 circles
lime background 3 squares
Note that background is drawn on the first layer only (see Layers).
The shapes meta instruction allows to change the default properties of all the shapes following its specification:
Draw a big purple filled circle, a big red filled square and a big green filled triangle:
big purple filled circle big red filled square big green filled triangle
or using the shapes meta instruction:
big filled shapes
purple circle red square green triangle
The padding meta instruction inserts padding with the specified size and at the specified side of the drawing. The size is specified as a proportion of the drawing dimensions. The side is specified as left, right, top and bottom. While it is possible to define padding for multiple sides, they can only be set to the same proportion. If no side is specified (i.e. only a proportion) the padding is added to all four sides.
Draw a red square to the right of a 1/8 padding:
1/8 left padding
red square
Multiple images can be drawn on top of each other using layers. Layers are divided by one or more = symbols.