A feature-rich ASCII art generation tool for Go that transforms text into stunning banner-style ASCII art with color highlighting and file output capabilities. Supports multiple font styles including standard, shadow, and thinkertoy banners.

A powerful, production-ready ASCII art generation tool written in Go that transforms ordinary text into magnificent banner-style ASCII art with color highlighting, file output, and multiple font styles.

• 🎨 Color Highlighting - Color specific substrings or entire text blocks
• 💾 File Output - Save ASCII art directly to .txt files
• 📚 3 Banner Styles - Standard, Shadow, and Thinkertoy fonts
• 📝 Multi-line Support - Use \n for line breaks
• 🎯 Case-Insensitive Matching - Color substrings regardless of case
• ⚡ Zero Dependencies - Pure Go standard library implementation
• 🖥️ Cross-Platform - Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

• Go 1.16 or higher

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Domitor12/ascii-art-studio.git
cd ascii-art-studio

# Build the binary
go build -o ascii-studio

# Optional: Install to GOPATH/bin
go install

# Run directly
go run . "Hello World"

# Or use the compiled binary
./ascii-studio "Hello World"

# Basic usage
go run . [STRING] [BANNER]

# Color mode
go run . --color=<color> [substring] "text" [banner]

# Output mode
go run . --output=<filename.txt> "text" [banner]

go run . "Hello World"
go run . "ASCII Art" shadow
go run . "Banner" thinkertoy

# Color entire text
go run . --color=red "Warning!"

# Color specific substring
go run . --color=blue cat "The cat in the hat"

# Color with custom banner
go run . --color=green --banner=shadow go "Go Programming"

# Save to file (standard banner)
go run . --output=result.txt "Hello World"

# Save with custom banner
go run . --output=art.txt "Amazing" shadow

# Save multi-line art
go run . --output=banner.txt "Line1\nLine2\nLine3" thinkertoy

Command:

go run . "GO"

Output:

  ___   ___  
 / _ \ / _ \ 
| | | | | | |
| |_| | |_| |
 \___/ \___/ 

Command:

go run . --color=red Go "Go is awesome"

Only "Go" appears in red while "is awesome" remains default color.

Command:

go run . --color=cyan --banner=shadow code "Write code"

Command:

go run . --output=welcome.txt "Welcome\nTo\nASCII\nArt" standard

Creates welcome.txt containing 4 lines of ASCII art.

Command:

go run . --color=yellow HELLO "Hello hello HELLO"

All three variations of "hello" are colored yellow.

Command:

go run . --color=purple art --banner=thinkertoy "ASCII Art is an art form"

Only the substring "art" (both occurrences) appears in purple using Thinkertoy font.

Each banner file follows this format:

• Characters stored in ASCII order (32 to 126)
• Each character occupies exactly 9 lines
• Lines 1-8: ASCII art representation
• Line 9: Empty separator

1. Parse command line arguments and flags
2. Load appropriate banner file into memory
3. Locate all substring occurrences (case-insensitive)
4. Build each of the 8 rows character by character
5. Inject ANSI color codes at substring boundaries
6. Output to terminal or file

const charHeight = 8      // Lines per character
const asciiStart = 32     // ASCII code for space
const blockSize = 9       // Lines per character including separator

# Color + Custom Banner + File Output
go run . --color=green --banner=shadow --output=green_art.txt success "Success!"

# Multi-line with Substring Coloring
go run . --color=blue error "Error 404\nError 500\nSystem Error" shadow

# Complex Text Processing
go run . --color=magenta Go --banner=thinkertoy "Let's Go to Go Conference"

# Invalid banner - shows available options
go run . "Hello" invalid_banner

# Missing file - shows clear error
go run . --output=test.txt

# Invalid color - defaults to no color
go run . --color=rainbow "Text"

# Test basic functionality
go run . "TEST"

# Test all banners
go run . "TEST" standard
go run . "TEST" shadow
go run . "TEST" thinkertoy

# Test color mode
go run . --color=red "TEST"
go run . --color=blue TEST "TEST CASE"

# Test file output
go run . --output=test.txt "TEST"

1. Character Set: Only supports printable ASCII (32-126)
2. Color Support: Requires ANSI-compatible terminal
3. File Output: Always overwrites existing files
4. Banner Files: Must be in the same directory as executable
5. Substring Coloring: Affects all occurrences, cannot be selective

• RGB true color support (--color=#FF0000)
• Background colors
• Text alignment (left/center/right)
• Gradient effects
• Custom banner file support
• Web API version
• Image to ASCII conversion
• Animation support
• PDF/Image output formats

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch

   git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature

3. Commit changes

   git commit -m 'Add amazing feature'

4. Push to branch

   git push origin feature/amazing-feature

5. Open a Pull Request

• Follow Go standard formatting (go fmt)
• Add comments for exported functions
• Maintain backward compatibility
• Write tests for new features

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

• Go standard library team for exceptional packages
• ASCII art community for banner file formats
• ANSI standards committee for terminal color codes

Author: VINCENT ONYECHEREM IKENNA

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

# BASIC USAGE
go run . "text"                    # Standard banner
go run . "text" shadow            # Shadow banner
go run . "text" thinkertoy        # Thinkertoy banner

# COLOR MODE
go run . --color=red "text"       # Color entire text
go run . --color=blue sub "text"  # Color substring
go run . --color=green sub "text" shadow  # Color + banner

# FILE OUTPUT
go run . --output=out.txt "text"  # Save to file
go run . --output=out.txt "text" shadow  # Save with banner

# HELP
go run .                          # Show usage

Transform your text into terminal art today! 🎨

Made with ❤️ by VINCENT ONYECHEREM IKENNA