MooTools ASCII Art

By David Walsh on January 3, 2011

I didn't realize that I truly was a nerd until I could admit to myself that ASCII art was better than the pieces Picasso, Monet, or Van Gogh could create. ASCII art is unmatched in its beauty, simplicity, and ... OK, well, I'm being ridiculous; ASCII art is good for a few giggles but that seems to be it. A new MooTools class has hit the Forge: MooAsciiArt. Let's have some fun by turning images and DOM nodes into glorious, character-driven ASCII art.

View Demo

Sample HTML

To illustrate how awesome this MooTools resource is, let's set up both an H2 tag and IMG tag to convert to beautiful ASCII art:

<h2>David Walsh Blog</h2>
<img src="/wp-content/themes/2k11/images/homeLogo.png" id="logoImage" alt="David Walsh Blog" />

These basic elements will be converted to glorious ASCII art! The anticipation should be viagra to your geeky mind!

The MooTools JavaScript

There are two ways to use MooAsciiArt: images or basic DOM nodes. Using MooAsciiArt on images is simple; simply use the toAsciiArt method to convert your image to ASCII art:

document.id("logoImage").toAsciiArt(true);

You may also use MooAsciiArt's convertTags method to convert DOM nodes to ASCII art:

MooAsciiArt.fontPath = "MooAsciiArt/Demo/fonts/"
MooAsciiArt.convertTags({ h2:"Doom" });

The string that accompanies the tag name is the "flf" font file which represents the character representation for every letter. The following is a snippet of the "Doom.flf" file:

       @@
 ______@
|___  /@
  $/ / @
  / /  @
./ /___@
\_____/@
       @
       @@
 ___ @
|  _|@
| |  @
| |  @
| |  @
| |_ @
|___|@
     @@
__     @
\ \    @
 \ \   @
  \ \  @
   \ \ @
    \_\@
       @
       @@
 ___ @
|_  |@
  | |@
  | |@
  | |@
 _| |@
|___|@
     @@
 /\ @
|/\|@
  $ @
  $ @
  $ @
  $ @
    @
    @@
        @
        @
        @
        @
        @
    $   @
 ______ @
|______|@@
 _ @
( )@
 \|@
 $ @
 $ @
 $ @
   @
   @@
       @
       @
  __ _ @
 / _` |@
| (_| |@
 \__,_|@
       @
       @@
 _     @
| |    @
| |__  @
| '_ \ @
| |_) |@
|_.__/ @
       @
       @@

The FLF file allows you to create your own font formats, so creating your own fonts can be super easy.

View Demo

You could be the next great artist. The next ~~Picasa~~ Webcasso. In all seriousness, ASCII art is pretty fucking cool. It's our way to rebel against the hippie artists that don't understand that our code is art. If you like ASCII art like I do, you'll love this awesome MooTools class.

Recent Features

By David WalshNovember 26, 2012

Animated 3D Flipping Menu with CSS

CSS animations aren't just for basic fades or sliding elements anymore -- CSS animations are capable of much more. I've showed you how you can create an exploding logo (applied with JavaScript, but all animation is CSS), an animated Photo Stack, a sweet...

By Andi DysartOctober 16, 2014

Responsive Images: The Ultimate Guide

Chances are that any Web designers using our Ghostlab browser testing app, which allows seamless testing across all devices simultaneously, will have worked with responsive design in some shape or form. And as today's websites and devices become ever more varied, a plethora of responsive images...

Incredible Demos

By David WalshApril 16, 2008

Facebook Sliders With Mootools and CSS

One of the great parts of being a developer that uses Facebook is that I can get some great ideas for progressive website enhancement. Facebook incorporates many advanced JavaScript and AJAX features: photo loads by left and right arrow, dropdown menus, modal windows, and...

By David WalshDecember 11, 2008

jQuery Countdown Plugin

You've probably been to sites like RapidShare and MegaUpload that allow you to download files but make you wait a specified number of seconds before giving you the download link. I've created a similar script but my script allows you to animate the CSS font-size...