TheDraw is a

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be u ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

to create

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

and animations as well as

ASCII art ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) character (computing), characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 an ...

. The editor is especially useful to create or modify files in

format and text documents, which use the graphical characters of the IBM ASCII

code pages In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a single byte. (In some co ...

, because they are not supported by Microsoft Windows anymore. The first version of the editor was developed in 1986 by Ian E. Davis of TheSoft Programming Services. The last public version of the editor was version 4.63, which was released in October 1993. TheDraw was one of the first ANSI editors that supported ANSIs longer than 25 rows. The limit in the latest available version is still 100 rows. Other editors, such as

ACiDDraw ACiD Productions (ACiD) is a digital art group. Founded in 1990, the group originally specialized in ANSI artwork for BBSes. More recently, they have extended their reach into other graphical media and computer software development. During the ...

are able to support ANSIs larger than 100 lines for a single ANSI/ASCII (ACiDDraw supports 1,000 lines). The animation mode is limited to 50 lines (rows). The column width can be extended from the standard 80 characters to 160, but this also reduces the row limit down to 50.

Compatibility with Microsoft Windows

The program is stable in an MS-DOS Window on

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

and allows the user to maintain mouse control. Used with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

however, TheDraw performs with less predictable results. It works with

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

Significant features

Some of the features of the editor include: * Mouse support to select blocks of text within the editor (even under Windows in window and full-screen mode) * For the selected area/block exist a number of unique functions :* Fill function to change the color of a whole section of the text :* Copy/Move and Paste function to copy/move entire blocks of text within the document. :* Erase function that clears the selected area of any characters without the surrounding characters changing position. :* Replace function to replace the content of the selected area with the content of the TheDraw "clipboard". :* Load/Save function to save only the selected area or load an ANSI/ASCII from the hard disk into the selected area (replace). * Font manager to create/modify and organize

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

and

fonts to be used within the editor * Additional file formats in addition to ANSI (.ANS) and text (.ASC). :* The proprietary

PCBoard PCBoard (PCB) was a bulletin board system (BBS) application first introduced for DOS in 1983 by Clark Development Company. Clark Development was founded by Fred Clark. PCBoard was one of the first commercial BBS packages for DOS systems, and wa ...

(.PCB) and

Wildcat! BBS Wildcat! BBS is a bulletin board system server application that Mustang Software developed in 1986 for MS-DOS, and later ported to Microsoft Windows. The product was later expanded to integrate Internet access under the name WINServer (Wildcat! I ...

(.BBS) file formats. :* The

AVATAR Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appeara ...

(.AVT) file standard defined by FidoNet. :* Save files for various

programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer program, computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be visual programming language, graphical. They are a kind of computer ...

, including

Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

(.ASM), C (.H) and

Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally developed by Anders Hejlsberg at ...

(.PAS). :* Ability to save ANSIs as .COM binary, .BIN and

object code In computing, object code or object module is the product of a compiler. In a general sense object code is a sequence of statements or instructions in a computer language, usually a machine code language (i.e., binary) or an intermediate lang ...

(.OBJ). :* Other supported formats:

BSave BSAVE and BLOAD are commands in many varieties of the BASIC programming language. BSAVE copies RAM to a binary file, and BLOAD copies the contents of the file to RAM. The term "BSAVE image" could mean any of various raw image formats of video di ...

(.BSV) and backup files (.BAK) * Comprehensive help screens * Preset transition animations to wipe or change the image * ANSI animation support (creation and modification) * The "Draw Mode" used automatically the appropriate character from the currently selected set to draw lines and corners by simply using the cursor keys (up/down/left/right) * The default character sets can be modified and extended

References

External links

TheDraw V4.63
download page
Interview
with Ian Davis, creator of TheDraw, by RaD Man of

ACiD Productions ACiD Productions (ACiD) is a digital art group. Founded in 1990, the group originally specialized in ANSI artwork for BBSes. More recently, they have extended their reach into other graphical media and computer software development. During the B ...

ASCII art Bulletin board systems DOS text editors 1986 software

Compatibility with Microsoft Windows

Significant features

See also

References

Further reading

External links