Hi All

I've lost my mind on this one (well, I lost my mind a VERY long time ago, but this is yet another one to add to the pile of lost mind).

Editing ANSI - tried lots of (windows and dos) editors but none really give me the right result. In that they display OK in the editor, but whack them into Mystic and the colours all screw up. So lets try editing the file in Mysitc ANSI editor - cleans it up a bit, but then the command prompt is all out of whack. I'm old, but back in the old days, I never had this grief. I know its not the software and is very likely PEBCAK - but does everyone have this grief?

I'm no artist, and this is probably the blocker from doing alot more with my BBS - so this is frustrating me. I did reach out on 16.colors for someone to do the work, but got ghosted by one guy. Meh. Lets keep going.

Any suggestions?

Merry Christmas and Happy New years to everyone from a somber down under.

Z

... System halted - Press all keys at once to continue

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Megadodo - Mostly Harmless, Marginally Functional (21:3/185)

Re: ANSI Editors and Display in BBS
By: zarniwoop to All on Sat Dec 20 2025 05:46:56

Hi All

I've lost my mind on this one (well, I lost my mind a VERY long time ago, but this is yet another one to add to the pile of lost mind).

Editing ANSI - tried lots of (windows and dos) editors but none really give me the right result. In that they display OK in the editor, but whack them into Mystic and the colours all screw up. So lets try editing the file in Mysitc ANSI editor - cleans it up a bit, but then the command prompt is all out of whack. I'm old, but back in the old days, I never had this grief. I know its not the software and is very likely PEBCAK - but does everyone have this grief?

I'm no artist, and this is probably the blocker from doing alot more with my BBS - so this is frustrating me. I did reach out on 16.colors for someone to do the work, but got ghosted by one guy. Meh. Lets keep going.

Any suggestions?

maybe keep an eye on not using iCE Colors. not sure how those translate when you display in your BBS.
what editor are you using?

i think moebius is quite popular. And as soon as the next version is released and bugtested, icyDraw.

also, using reference images is very helpful. it will load an image of your choice in the background and you can draw over it.

Mindsurfer
--- SBBSecho 3.33-Linux
* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

Hey zarniwoop!

On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 05:46:56 +0000, you wrote:

Editing ANSI - tried lots of (windows and dos) editors but none really
give me the right result. In that they display OK in the editor, but
whack them into Mystic and the colours all screw up. So lets try editing
the file in Mysitc ANSI editor - cleans it up a bit, but then the
command prompt is all out of whack. I'm old, but back in the old days, I never had this grief. I know its not the software and is very likely
PEBCAK - but does everyone have this grief?

I'm no artist, and this is probably the blocker from doing alot more
with my BBS - so this is frustrating me. I did reach out on 16.colors
for someone to do the work, but got ghosted by one guy. Meh. Lets keep going.

Any suggestions?

I've used Pablodraw (https://github.com/cwensley/pablodraw) for as long as I can remember. By default, I think SAUCE is enabled (extra information saved to the ansi, like author, description, etc. that you wouldn't want to display on a BBS), so you would just have to make sure that's disabled before saving anything. Otherwise, it's pretty straight forward after that.

Also, keep in mind the dark colors can be used as background (0-8). When you switch it up and use a bright color as background, I believe you're now enabling ice colors, which /could/ display if supported, could be blinking, could just display something you weren't expecting, etc, depending on what BBS software or client you're using.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20250409
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (21:1/200)

I've used Pablodraw

I've used PabloDraw for a while now too. The only issue I have with it is that it seems to generate extra ANSI escape codes that I end up having to manually remove. On something like SyncTerm, you don't notice them, but I also make sure to support ANSI on Atari 8bit terms like Ice-T which ends up printing the unknown (to it) escape codes and making a mess. At the very least, it bloats the file size.

Here's the regex I use to find the chars to remove if anyone's interested:

.?\[\d+;\d+;\d+;\d+t

I should also mention that I don't really have anything complex in my ANSI files so perhaps those would be needed if I was doing something more advanced.


--- NE BBS v1.13.2 (linux; x64)
* Origin: NE BBS - nebbs.servehttp.com:9223 (21:3/193)

Editing ANSI - tried lots of (windows and dos) editors but none really
give me the right result. In that they display OK in the editor, but

When I went to try out all the modern ANSI editors, I ran into issues with every single one. More than likely, if you work on one long enough, you can get it set and working just right. For me, I picked Moebius because I was using MacOS at the time. If you turn of ALL the extra options in Moebius (no ICE colors, no SAUCE, no nothing extra), which seem to all be on by default by the way, and you "save without sauce", you get the desired results. Actually, one more thing... make your canvas 79 columns instead of 80.

Others have recommended the other programs, which have their own quirks that you have to work around. I guess just pick one and mess with its options until it gives you something you expect.

Back on that 79 cols vs 80 thing, if you are making use of the entire line of text AND are changing colors, there will be more than 80 characters on that line. That's something that different editors and BBSes probably all handle differently.


--- NE BBS v1.13.2 (linux; x64)
* Origin: NE BBS - nebbs.servehttp.com:9223 (21:3/193)

Here's the regex I use to find the chars to remove if anyone's interested:

Idea: Make it so you can forward/reply to messages via email, that way youcan forward yourself a message to save for later while you're on a computer that can't switch over to another window and take notes ;).


--- NE BBS v1.13.2 (linux; x64)
* Origin: NE BBS - nebbs.servehttp.com:9223 (21:3/193)

On Saturday, December 20th zarniwoop said...

I've lost my mind on this one (well, I lost my mind a VERY long time ago, but this is yet another one to add to the pile of lost mind).

Editing ANSI - tried lots of (windows and dos) editors but none really give me the right result. In that they display OK in the editor, but whack them into Mystic and the colours all screw up. So lets try editing

I'm not entirely certain, but, you're not describing what client you are using? All modern terminal clients customize the first 16 colors, all bbs's look like trash on modern terminals because of this.


The solution is to use 256 or even better, 24-bit color sequences, so that the exact color you intend is rendered. I write about this here, https://blessed.readthedocs.io/en/latest/colors.html#id2

Terminal emulators use different values for any of these 16 colors, the most common of these are displayed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#3-bit_and_4-bit. Users can customize these 16 colors as a common “theme”, so that one CLI application
appears of the same color theme as the next.

When exact color values are needed, 24-bit Colors should be preferred, by their name or RGB value.

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 22.18.0)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.vip:44510 (21:1/121)

And, I encourage you to take a look at this link carefully,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#3-bit_and_4-bit

Where you can see all of the many different default color schemes for many different terminals are entirely different.

Anyway, if ansi art used 24-bit colors they would define exactly the #ffffff color intended and depicted. It would probably still be good "style" to restrict to 16 colors, but, you can accurately define the color you wish to represent, and, maybe make a few small adjustments for your preferred shade of "blue" and "brown" (yellow) which are the most agregious offenders.




--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 22.18.0)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.vip:44510 (21:1/121)

When I went to try out all the modern ANSI editors, I ran into issues
with every single one. More than likely, if you work on one long enough, you can get it set and working just right. For me, I picked Moebius because I was using MacOS at the time. If you turn of ALL the extra options in Moebius (no ICE colors, no SAUCE, no nothing extra), which
seem to all be on by default by the way, and you "save without sauce",
you get the desired results. Actually, one more thing... make your
canvas 79 columns instead of 80.

I've tried to make this situation a bit better in icy draw where you can choose different output levels and different types of documents to improve compatibility and make that easier.

Feedback would be helpful.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

I've tried to make this situation a bit better in icy draw where you can choose different output levels and different types of documents to
improve compatibility and make that easier.

Feedback would be helpful.

I'm going to try and find some time over the holidays to play. I downloaded the latest, and tried to do what I was doing before - no luck (it is solid background colour, but shouldn't be an issue??) Basic...sooo basic.

But as I originally said, probably PEBKAC.

Will let you know how I get on (but have been using Icy more than others).

... A book misplaced is a book lost

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Megadodo - Mostly Harmless, Marginally Functional (21:3/185)