Table of Contents

ANS2ASC

ANSI to Synchronet Ctrl-A message format conversion utility

The ANS2ASC utility may be used to convert files encoded with ANSI X3.64 terminal escape sequences (e.g. *.ans files created/edited with an ANSI editor) into Ctrl-A encoded output (e.g. Synchronet *.asc or *.msg files).

This utility will convert basic non-animated ANSI files into Synchronet Ctrl-A code files that can be displayed to color or monochrome ANSI terminal users with attractive results as well as non-ANSI (e.g. TTY) terminal users. This allows you to use an ANSI drawing program (such as TheDraw) to create your menus in ANSI and convert the ANSI file to Ctrl-A message format for your .asc or .msg version of the same file (for non-ANSI or ANSI-monochrome users, respectively). Or you can use the converted file for all users (terminal types) by keeping the ANSI (.ANS) version in a directory other than your text/menu directory.

If, for example, you create a main menu with an ANSI drawing program that you want your TTY and monochrome-ANSI users to see with attractive output, use ANS2ASC to create the .mon and .asc versions.

Type: ans2asc main.ans main.mon in your text/menu directory to create the monochrome version.

Type: ans2asc main.ans main.asc in your text/menu directory to create the ASCII (non-ANSI) version.

If you rename main.ans file or move into a directory other than text/menu, then you will not need the .mon version of the file as the .asc version will be used for all terminal types.

This utility is also useful for creating colorful system, newuser, feedback and other Synchronet .msg files for display. For example, create text/system.ans with your favorite ANSI editor and then convert to .msg by typing: ans2asc system.ans system.msg

The following ANSI terminal sequences (preceded by <ESC>[) are supported:

ANSI Ctrl-A Code Explanation Supported by ANSI.SYS
2J L Clear Screen (other J values are ignored) Yes
K > Clear to end-of-line Yes
#B Move cursor down # lines, converted to # line-feeds Yes
#C 7Fh-FFh Move cursor right # columns Yes
#D Move cursor left # columns, converted to # backspaces or carriage-return if # >= 80 Yes
0m N Normal attribute Yes
1m H High intensity Yes
2m N Low intensity * No
3m I Italic * No
4m I Underline * No
5m I Blink Yes
6m I Rapid Blink * No
7m I Reverse Video * No
8m E1) Concealed text * No
30m K Foreground black Yes
31m R Foreground red Yes
32m G Foreground green Yes
33m Y Foreground yellow Yes
34m B Foreground blue Yes
35m M Foreground magenta Yes
36m C Foreground cyan Yes
37m W Foreground white Yes
40m 0 Background black Yes
41m 1 Background red Yes
42m 2 Background green Yes
43m 3 Background yellow Yes
44m 4 Background blue Yes
45m 5 Background magenta Yes
46m 6 Background cyan Yes
47m 7 Background white Yes

Options

ANS2ASC has the following command-line options:

-clear Insert a clear-screen code at the beginning of the output file
-pause Append a pause (hit a key) code to the end of the output file
-delay <value> Interval (in bytes) to insert a 1/10th second delay code - lower numbers equal “slower” files, delay value must be a positive non-zero integer

Animation

In general, animated ANSI files cannot be converted to equivalent Ctrl-A files. Only cursor positioning ANSI sequences which can be converted to non-ANSI equivalents (e.g. cursor-right or cursor-down positioning) may be converted to Ctrl-A codes. If you see the following warning message from ANS2ASC, that indicates that you most likely are trying to convert an ANSI file with unsupported animation sequences:

Unsupported ANSI code 'x' (0xYY)"

Some ANSI editing programs will save ANSI files with unsupported cursor positioning sequences by default. To avoid saving unsupported cursor positioning sequences when using the TheDraw, for example, use the Block-Save feature.

See Also

1)
deprecated “elite text” feature