ASCII Containers

Why? It's only going to clutter your code in a way that doesn't add any usefulness. Even the boxes are totally useless and make files needlessly large(And thus, require more time to scroll through).

Sorry, can't help.

Not code (or comments) persay, but read-me files. I don't mind trading off a little size for user experience.

Simplicity often works best if user experience is your concern. Any "containers" tend to look cluttered and most likely detract more from readability than they add to it. You could look at readme.txt files for examples on formatting. One example that I think works particularly well is to underline first level headings with lines of '=' and second level headings with lines of '-'.

Like so:



[Edit] Duh... Added linebreaks.

ascii art

This one looks quite nice:

 │·──────────────────────────·─·─[· GREETiNGS ·]─·─·────────────────────────·│ │·                                                                         ·│ │|  Personal greets:                                                       |│ ││                                                                         ││ ││           StarGrove, Dracosis, Erl–King, Youngblood, Dark Star          ││ ││           ShortCCT, Homey Da Clown, Tsunami, and Dr. Anarchy.           ││ ││                                                                         ││ │|  Group greets:                                                          |│ ││                                                                         ││ ││       Razor, Genesis, TDU–JAM, DOD, PCY, RiSC, ZillionZ and all those   ││ ││       others just having fun.  Special whazup to ADR and that kewl new  ││ │|       group Vendetta and their prez Lone Dragon!                        |│ ··                                                                         ·· │·───────────────────────────·─·─[· NOTiCE ·]─·─·──────────────────────────·│ │·                                                                         ·│ │|  To become a member of this distributing group, talk to _ReDDoG_ in     |│ ││  #fate for an application. We are only accepting few, and only the most ││ ││  dedicated, fast couriers across the world. 4+ node boards need only    ││ ││  apply for distros. fATE has great expectations to become the best that ││ ││  we can be. If you THINK you're a member, but you are not in the nfo,   ││ ││  too bad. You're a slacker, and we dont take you fucking wackers. So,   ││ ││  if you're not in the nfo, you're not in the group. This includes trial ││ ││  members, so stop saying you're in the group. Your name's not above,    ││ ││  than you're not fATE. If you want something SPREAD, give it to a fATE  ││ ││  member....                                                             |│ ··                                                                         ·· │·─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────·│             ··─·───·──────««<─·1995·fATE·1995·─>»»───────·───·─··              ·─·───·──────««<─· 27 July 1995 ·─>»»───────·───·─··

@lol

Can't help you with header boxes (lies, see below), and I'm actually with the "just underline it / just make a PDF" crowd, but if you want your header to be fancy, you could try one of the many ascii fonts. Here's a useful generator.

Actually, here's a program that draws various fancy ascii boxes around blocks of text. Check their examples page if you just wanna "borrow" a pre-made one without installing the program.

Quote:

Original post by owl ascii art

Oh god, some of those must've taken months to create, if not years.

Point taken - I've probably been idolizing too many game mod readmes and too few game readmes.

Quote:

Original post by lightbringer Oh god, some of those must've taken months to create, if not years.

I'm pretty sure they can be generated by a computer program.

I would recommend placing your documentation in an ASCII autostereogram. It's fun for the whole family!

Quote:

Original post by Sander Quote: Original post by lightbringer Oh god, some of those must've taken months to create, if not years. I'm pretty sure they can be generated by a computer program.

Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a bunch of kids with really powerless computers (compared to those we use today), whom called themselves 'Teh Scene'. In that time, the Internet wasn't accesible to anyone as it is today, so they had to comunicate through the thelephone line using a modem directly to each other's computers ONE AT A TIME! At that point in time Computer graphics were restricted to a maximum of 320x200 and that resolution was unthinkable to be used when connecting through a modem, so all they had was ascii text mode to decorate their Bulletin Board Systems (which were like a website but in text mode)...

I've seen people copying a photo to ANSI by hand! Lot's of times. There is people who has a natural gift to perform such things.

Quote:

Original post by Toolmaker Why? It's only going to clutter your code in a way that doesn't add any usefulness. Even the boxes are totally useless and make files needlessly large(And thus, require more time to scroll through). Sorry, can't help.

I would disagree with this slightly - I like to put starts of functions / classes into some distinguishable but simple box, like:

//============================

or

//#############################

ex:

//======================================================// MyClass - this is an important class that does stuff//======================================================

This way when scrolling through code it is much easier to spot when functions / classes start. A simple one line comment may be easily missed in a sea of such comments. It's especially useful for really long files with lots of definitions of really long functions / classes.

I do something very similar to Koobazaur. I have 4 levels of "dividers"



I use dividers to divide various sections of classes (properties, variables, public functions, private utility functions, etc). You can very quickly parse where these things are and go immediately to that part of the code. Yes, it adds a little overhead but for readability, it is worth it.

Additionally, the dividers indicate the maximum width that a line of code should not exceed under most circumstances. The viewer should not have to horizontally scroll the window to read your code.