____________________________________

Authors can draw their own diagrams as text graphics.

Also linefeed chars should not be ignored for proper formatting.

Some times one simple diagram can save lot of text lines of description. _____________________________________
-- VJW, Jan 26 2011

The idea immediately below... ASCII_20Annos
...describes more or less the same thing. [Wrongfellow, Jan 26 2011]

Works fine for me http://img248.image.../worksfineforme.png
Monospace HB in Lynx. [nineteenthly, Jan 26 2011]

The Halfbakery already has plenty of special characters, some more 'special' than others.
-- hippo, Jan 26 2011


Someone call Nurse Ratchett! hippo's got out again!
-- DrBob, Jan 26 2011


See what I mean?
-- hippo, Jan 26 2011


As i've said before, all i want personally is the ability to do sub- and superscripts. I am slightly tempted by the idea of a square root sign but i can live without it. An interrobang would also be nice.
-- nineteenthly, Jan 26 2011


It would be nice if we could draw rectangles and diagonal lines.
-- VJW, Jan 26 2011


\ [__]
\
\
[______]
-- xandram, Jan 26 2011


This is the halfbakery, not the halfdiagramery. If you wanna hash something out that far go start a buisness loan application and leave us alone. Just a coffeeless morning opinion.
-- daseva, Jan 26 2011


The halfbakery is already full of special characters - A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation nonwithstanding, there are also all manner of other legal characters available as disscussed elsewhere. The key to (more easily) getting these characters to line up and form a coherent image is less to do with what characters are available, and more to do with the level of control you have over placing them where you want.

Reconciling the desire of the individual user to fully define the layout of their annotations, and setting the global layout template for a well structured and clean-looking website is a tricky balancing act - coming firmly down one side or the other in terms of design is probably the best approach and concessions to the other side are probably best kept to a minimum.
-- zen_tom, Jan 26 2011


See my link. No need to modify the HB at all to manage this. Just use the best browser (which i'm not right now).
-- nineteenthly, Jan 26 2011


//halfdiagramery//

A place where bread goes to rest.
-- skinflaps, Jan 26 2011


//The halfbakery is already full of special characters// True.
-- mouseposture, Jan 27 2011


[VJW] Help pages Esp. "In an account description, an annotation, and the main text of an invention, the sequence < br > will produce a single line break (as in HTML), and an empty line will produce a paragraph break. "
-- Dub, Jan 27 2011


Some yahoo sites such as answers.yahoo.com allow users to draw text graphics very well.

I think we don't have to worry about all the browsers. Do it for one browser, say IE and declare it to be so.

//is less to do with what characters are available,//

HB does not display most of the characters required for drawing rectangles,and displays junk instead. I suspect it should not be too dificult to just display these characters. Alignment could be a different issue.

I suspect some kind of style flag called "display Unicode characters", "OR"ed to the style of static text box might handle display (of chars) problem.
-- VJW, Jan 27 2011


It seems HB simply ignores series of spaces and replaces them by just one space. Is it for saving disk space/bandwidth ?
-- VJW, Jan 27 2011


[VJV] It's nowhere explicit, but, to me, it seems we're supposed to concentrate on content, and let the HB handle the layout, typsetting, call it what you will. It's rather like LaTeX in that respect. Even < br > is made available a bit grudgingly, and we're asked to use it sparingly. Right or wrong, WYWIWYM seems to be the Halfbakery philosophy.
-- mouseposture, Jan 27 2011


where does it say use < br > sparingly?
-- po, Jan 27 2011


[po] Well, not the Help page: I just checked. I think [jutta]'s said this at some point, or else I'm confabulating. I can't think of a search strategy that would let me check my memory: you can imagine what happens when I search on "< br >"
-- mouseposture, Jan 27 2011


Here's a simple diagram [-]
-- xenzag, Jan 27 2011


Ha! Xen FTW! When you hone your venom good things will happen my usually happily constructive fellow baker! Hahah, just kidding really, this idea is bad no matter who the f u r.
-- daseva, Jan 27 2011


All you need is Lynx.

Lynx is all you need.
-- nineteenthly, Jan 27 2011


// let the HB handle the layout, typsetting, call it //

It is not about layout so much as about being able to draw simple diagrams using text graphics using special "characters" really to explain the text.
-- VJW, Jan 27 2011


If only you could diagram how to use a diagram.
-- daseva, Jan 27 2011


If only your text could explain your text.
-- xandram, Jan 27 2011



random, halfbakery