Any easy way to produce pure text /ascii based diagrams readable in source mode?

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

I would like to keep my notes readable in source mode as pure text. But i have problem with diagram charts and such.
For now i use this ASCIIFlow but it would have been much easier if there was editor inside Obsidian.

Example of text based diagram:

+-----------------------+
|                       +------------->
|      Diagram box      |
|                       <-------+
+--+--------------------+       |
   |                            |
   |                            |
   |                            |
   |                            |
   |                       Something
   |                        happens
 +-v--------------------+       |
 |                      +-------+
 |     Diagram box 2    |            |
 |                      <------------+
 +----------------------+

Things I have tried

  • searched all around the web for plugin, if it exists i can’t find it

Is there any way i could use something like ASCIIFlow directly inside Obsidian?

2

Gosh! I didnt know this even existed. It would have made my ASCII diagrams a lot easier to generate. I typically just create them manually inside a code block like this:-

                                        ----------------
                                     -->| SUBSCRIBER 1 |
                                     |  ----------------
                                     |   
                        -----------  |  ----------------
                     -->| TOPIC A |---->| SUBSCRIBER 2 |
                     |  -----------     ----------------
                     |
    ---------------  |  -----------     ----------------
    | PUBLISHER 1 |---->| TOPIC B |---->| SUBSCRIBER 3 |
    ---------------  |  -----------     ----------------
                     |       .
                     |       .          ----------------
                     |       .       -->| SUBSCRIBER 4 |
                     |  -----------  |  ----------------
                     -->| TOPIC Z |--|
                        -----------  |  ----------------
                                     |->| SUBSCRIBER 5 |
                                     |  ----------------
                                     |   
                                     |  ----------------
                                     -->| SUBSCRIBER 6 | (interested in TOPIC Z subtopic A only)
                                        ----------------

I use mermaid diagrams as well and i have to create them in mermaid.live and then copy the text into a mermaid code block. I imagine you will need to do something similar for ASCII diagrams.

3

Glad it helps you :sweat_smile:

Yeah, i do copy paste them from ASCIIFlow to Obsidian.

But i already have an IDE, source of the information, Obsidian and multiple other windows open.
It would be nice to get this feature in the Obsidian to do less window switching.

4

Have you tried using an iframe?

<iframe src="https://asciiflow.com/#/" allow="fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" style="height:100%;width:100%; aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; "></iframe>

5

Nope it’s interesting though. It possibly bypasses a need for other plugins as well as long as there’s web service. I have to explore iframe bit more.

However i also need it to work offline. For offline workaround also found using “ASCII Art Studio v2.2.1 [Portable Edition]” to be relatively useful even though it lacks diagram specifics like lines with arrow “glued” to objects.