Introducing 'asciicast' - some utilities for the asciicinema animation format

mikefc

Introducing the ‘asciicast’ package - some utilities for the asciicinema animation format

asciicast contains some limited tools for dealing with the asciicast file format as defined by asciinema.

Its only real capability is to combine multiple text documents into a flipbook (one-file-per-frame), and play the resulting asciicast file in Rstudio or a browser.

What’s in the box

  • create_asciicast_flipbook() to create an asciicast file from a list of text files, with each text file being 1 frame of the animation.
  • play_asciicast() to play an asciicast file in Rstudio or the browser.

Limitations

  • Currently asciicasts can’t be played in an Rmarkdown document or on github - but they play fine in the Rstudio viewer using asciicast::play_asciicast()
  • Only flipbook animation supported.

Installation

You can install the from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("coolbutuseless/asciicast")

Create some text files

tdir <- tempdir()

line_letters <- c(letters)

for (file_num in 1:26) {
  cline <- paste(line_letters, collapse = '')
  filename <- sprintf("%s/frame-%03i.txt", tdir, file_num)
  writeLines(rep(cline, 10), con = filename)
  line_letters <- c(line_letters[-1], line_letters[1])
}

Example file:

jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi
jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi

Combine text files into an asciicast animation file

txt_files <- list.files(tdir, pattern = "frame.*txt", full.names = TRUE) 

cast <- asciicast::create_asciicast_flipbook(txt_files, filename = file.path(tdir, 'out.cast'), fps = 15)


#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
# This currently won't play in Rmarkdown or in github, but it will 
# play in the viewer in Rstudio.  
# For this document, I have uploaded the ".cast" file to asciinema.com and 
# linked to there.
#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
asciicast::play_asciicast(cast)