0.30 Devleopment Notes

[cmang]

Just like the last thread.. let's talk about the upcoming release!

New features coming in Durdraw 0.30.0:

• Plugin engine!
• Demoscene-style effects like sine, plasma, fire...
• Live theme switching and reloading!
• New themes: Tokyo Night, Outrun Night Drive, Hot Dog Stand
• Libvtescii character set by MC Fresher
• Cursor Settings menu, for setting block/underscore/pipe cursor
• Search/Replace Character under the cursor (similar to Replace Color)
• Bug Fixes re: canvas size, pasting

The plugin engine is working and evolving in the dev branch.

There are 2 new submenus in for plugins, which can be found in the Animation menu:

• Default Plugins (plugins that come with Durdraw). This menu replaces the "Transforms" menu.
• Plugins or User Plugins (which are plugins that have been added to the ~/.durdraw/plugins/ folder)

The plugin format has a standard metadata format, and can specify optional parameters, with defaults, like so:

durdraw_plugin = {
    "name": "Fire Behind",
    "author": "Grok (inspired by Asciimatics & Sam Foster)",
    "version": 1,
    "provides": ["transform_movie"],
    "desc": "Renders bonfire-like effects surrounding non-space chars, with originals on top."
}

opts = {
    # Animation settings
    "steps": 30,    # number of frames to generate
    "intensity": 0.6,  # More frequent for bonfire
    "spot heat": 16,   # Higher heat for taller flames
}

def transform_movie(mov, appState=None, opts=opts):
    steps = opts['steps']
    ...

When the user runs a plugin, the UI asks them to fill in these values (or press enter to leave default), then runs the plugin's transform_movie() function on the movie file.

You can see the default example plugins here.

There are some videos of the plugins in action here.

[cmang]

Live theme switching is here. :)

theme-switching.mp4