Seems really cool and the price is fair! I'm gonna try it!
randomgermanguy · 31m ago
Bought this couple months ago, and am now always looking for more ways to include this for inline-documentation.
the fact i can export to clipboard and re-import it and reconstruct all the shapes etc. almost flawlessly is such a big win.
makeitdouble · 9m ago
Sounds super interesting, where do you put these diagrams ?
It's an issue I'm seeing even for comments touching too much on algorithmic stuff. To take a somewhat common example, if you were dealing with a credit card payment flow, where would the explanation of how a transaction goes through a few states asynchronously, which all trigger a webhook callback ?
Obviously the people working on the code need to be aware of that, so documentation is somewhere needed. I've seen people put whole blocks in class headers, other sprinkle it all inside the code, personally I ended up moving it outside of the code. Where would you put it?
Etheryte · 27m ago
On one hand, this could provide a lot of value as some things are just plain hard to explain using only words. On the other hand, aren't you worried about when someone else comes along and needs to update one of those comments? If they're not aware of this tool, it's either going to be incredibly tedious or simply not going to happen.
dsego · 17m ago
Add a one line comment stating that it was edited by monodraw.
bayindirh · 11m ago
Since they're text files, you can also say "Please copy to a ASCII diagram editor and update there (e.g. Monodraw, asciiflow, etc.)".
makeitdouble · 7m ago
Looks like Monodraw a mac only BTW. That should be fine if macs are mandatory for all the devs on a project, but it would otherwise create a kinda weird situation.
bayindirh · 13m ago
I'm using this app since its first release.
It's a great simple app I use for inline comment diagrams and more importantly server login banners.
I love to login to a server with a customized banner and a tagline. It's just a small joy makes work more fun.
milen · 45m ago
Developer of the app here, happy to answer any questions.
MomsAVoxell · 37m ago
Very nice product!
In the retro computing world, the use of "ASCII" to construct levels and worlds is quite prevalent.
I immediately considered whether Monodraw might be used as a kind of level editor in that context.
Would you consider adding an '8-bit character bitmap' mode, which allows for the bitmap to also be edited?
With such a feature, Monodraw would become immediately applicable to those of us building retro games for older platforms where this technique is used rather extensively to produce compelling art-work.
For context, here is an example game which uses plain ol' ASCII chars to deliver some fun Moon Buggy action:
> Would you consider adding an '8-bit character bitmap' mode, which allows for the bitmap to also be edited?
Can you clarify with an example? Monodraw supports "surfaces" which are just like bitmaps - you can use the Pencil tool and draw on those surfaces with any characters you want (there's a palette in the inspector), just like a bitmap editor.
shirol · 28m ago
> Monodraw does not use activation or any other form of DRM. We have complete trust in our customers.
Interesting. But, why?
milen · 24m ago
Any time spent on copy protection is time not spent on improving the product for the paying customers.
I find it unlikely that such copy protection would actually convert a non-paying user into a customer.
I also don't want to make the software network dependent in any way.
__MatrixMan__ · 11m ago
The way that DRM and similar user-not-in-control technologies are making the world into a skinner box is a bigger problem than anything solved by those technologies.
Companies participating in that transformation don't get my money and I'm glad to know that this isn't one of them.
msephton · 23m ago
Cool app! What part excludes it from being sandboxed?
milen · 20m ago
The direct version is not sandboxed as I didn't want to deal with Sparkle (autoupdater) and sandboxing. The Mac App Store version is sandboxed.
elcapitan · 13m ago
Really neat, great work!
Would it be possible to export to text with escape sequences for the colors?
SirFatty · 31m ago
Windows version in the future?
milen · 27m ago
There are no current plans but never say never (the app is 100% AppKit, so porting means a full rewrite).
I wish I had the time to port it to all three desktop OSes.
gardenhedge · 35m ago
Was this to scratch your own itch or who needs this?
milen · 29m ago
Yeah, it was. After I finished working on the iOS app I was previously involved with, I needed to either find a job or make another app.
I was browsing StackOverflow and saw some cool looking ASCII diagrams, thinking to myself "How can I make these easily on macOS?". So that's how the idea was born.
I then spent about 1.5yrs from the initial commit until v1 release. Unfortunately, the financials didn't work out, so I had to find a job eventually.
But I'm still maintaining the app and do have longer term plans when my job situation changes.
you were involved with clear? damn! i was one of the first users back then, even using it to this day! monodraw looks awesome, will definitely check it out!
jzs · 33m ago
Ouch! It looks very sweet i must say.
Having worked on a similar idea for a while as a side project, it does hurt to see something better coming out.
I hope we can one day compete. :)
Edit: removed the URL
milen · 21m ago
Good luck with your project! The world is big enough for multiple products in the same space, no need to get discouraged.
mrzool · 53m ago
Such an underrated app. I’ve used it for everything from network topologies and storage diagrams and even for my kitchen redesign. Works way better than every pricey specialized tool I’ve tried, and the ASCII outputs look way cooler with their old-school hacker ASCII aesthetic! Highly recommended.
noosphr · 8m ago
Being able to include diagrams of what code is doing _inline_ is something that is vastly over looked by the majority of developers.
It's one of the better parts of literate programming without typesetting.
endymion-light · 1h ago
Will love to buy this once I get my Mac.
Looks great, and also love the perpetual license for $9.99 rather than the host of subscription services, i'll probably end up buying it just to support good practices.
greengreengrass · 11m ago
It's one of the few pieces of software I bought a licence for, rather than tolerate free tiers or simply not use it, because I approve of the licensing model.
Latest release Apr 2025 introduced a plain text save file format, which plays nicer for source control. Great to see development is still active.
thevinchi · 47m ago
I’m a big fan of durdraw[1] for crafting ANSI/ASCII art in the terminal, but this takes it to a whole new level, excited to try this especially if it includes color? From the website examples it doesn’t appear to include a color palette, but if it does then game on!
Now, that is something really cool, pity we didn't had something like that on BBS days.
billyp-rva · 39m ago
Accessibility question: how do screen readers handle ascii art-style diagrams like this? It seems like they would be overwhelmed by the lines.
dickiedyce · 47m ago
It's a really cracking little app, and great for inline docs.
nikolayasdf123 · 45m ago
10 USD?
how does this compare to asciiflow.com which is free and open-source?
milen · 16m ago
Monodraw's main selling point is that it's a fully native AppKit macOS app. If you value the experience, then you might like the app.
asciiflow.com is great as well.
(Monodraw developer here)
abm53 · 17m ago
The most obvious difference (and one worth much more than $10 to me) is that one is native and the other is not.
fscaramuzza · 41m ago
or even the "export to ascii" of draw.io? I would be happy to hear what the advantages could be.
elashri · 49m ago
It seems very good, is there anything comparable for Linux?
aaronius · 18m ago
Not sure how comparable they are since I never used Monodraw due to not running MACs, but there is https://asciiflow.com/ and https://monosketch.io/ which I usually use. The latter is using some advanced UTF8 characters and when trying to get it incorporated for my personal blog, I had to use their specific monospaced font from their repo, as otherwise lines wouldn't line up correctly.
LandR · 55m ago
Mac only ?
mrzool · 51m ago
Yes. Always nice to see good, Electron-free native apps for Mac.
the fact i can export to clipboard and re-import it and reconstruct all the shapes etc. almost flawlessly is such a big win.
It's an issue I'm seeing even for comments touching too much on algorithmic stuff. To take a somewhat common example, if you were dealing with a credit card payment flow, where would the explanation of how a transaction goes through a few states asynchronously, which all trigger a webhook callback ?
Obviously the people working on the code need to be aware of that, so documentation is somewhere needed. I've seen people put whole blocks in class headers, other sprinkle it all inside the code, personally I ended up moving it outside of the code. Where would you put it?
It's a great simple app I use for inline comment diagrams and more importantly server login banners.
I love to login to a server with a customized banner and a tagline. It's just a small joy makes work more fun.
In the retro computing world, the use of "ASCII" to construct levels and worlds is quite prevalent.
I immediately considered whether Monodraw might be used as a kind of level editor in that context.
Would you consider adding an '8-bit character bitmap' mode, which allows for the bitmap to also be edited?
With such a feature, Monodraw would become immediately applicable to those of us building retro games for older platforms where this technique is used rather extensively to produce compelling art-work.
For context, here is an example game which uses plain ol' ASCII chars to deliver some fun Moon Buggy action:
https://www.oric.org/software/ascii_moon_buggy-2500.html
The same technique is used here, albeit with redefined character sets, to implement a Scuba Dive adventure:
https://www.oric.org/software/scuba_dive-89.html
> Would you consider adding an '8-bit character bitmap' mode, which allows for the bitmap to also be edited?
Can you clarify with an example? Monodraw supports "surfaces" which are just like bitmaps - you can use the Pencil tool and draw on those surfaces with any characters you want (there's a palette in the inspector), just like a bitmap editor.
Interesting. But, why?
I find it unlikely that such copy protection would actually convert a non-paying user into a customer.
I also don't want to make the software network dependent in any way.
Companies participating in that transformation don't get my money and I'm glad to know that this isn't one of them.
Would it be possible to export to text with escape sequences for the colors?
I wish I had the time to port it to all three desktop OSes.
I was browsing StackOverflow and saw some cool looking ASCII diagrams, thinking to myself "How can I make these easily on macOS?". So that's how the idea was born.
I then spent about 1.5yrs from the initial commit until v1 release. Unfortunately, the financials didn't work out, so I had to find a job eventually.
But I'm still maintaining the app and do have longer term plans when my job situation changes.
[1] https://milen.me/software/clear-iphone-walkthrough/
I hope we can one day compete. :)
Edit: removed the URL
It's one of the better parts of literate programming without typesetting.
Looks great, and also love the perpetual license for $9.99 rather than the host of subscription services, i'll probably end up buying it just to support good practices.
[1] https://github.com/cmang/durdraw
how does this compare to asciiflow.com which is free and open-source?
asciiflow.com is great as well.
(Monodraw developer here)