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From: chappell@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Glenn Chappell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.ascii
Subject: Talk: figlet 2.1 announcement
Date: 18 Aug 1994 17:26:55 -0500
Organization: Math Dept., University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
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figlet version 2.1 (Unix) is finished and available.


***** How do I get it?

Currently, figlet 2.1 is available by anonymous FTP at

ftp.isu.edu:pub/figlet/figlet2.1.tar.Z

or

ftp.isu.edu:pub/figlet/figlet2.1.uue

Hopefully, the various other archives that have figlet will be getting
version 2.1 soon.


***** What is figlet?

figlet is a program that creates large letters out of ordinary ASCII
 _ _ _          _   _     _       
| (_) | _____  | |_| |__ (_)___   
| | | |/ / _ \ | __| '_ \| / __|  
| | |   <  __/ | |_| | | | \__ \_ 
|_|_|_|\_\___|  \__|_| |_|_|___(_)

figlet can use a number of fonts (over 50 are now available) and kern
and "smush" characters together in various ways.


***** What has changed in version 2.1?

For practical purposes, not much. :-)  That's why I called it "2.1"
instead of "3.0".  Version 2.1 is completely compatible with all
current figlet fonts, and fonts written to take advantage of the new
features in 2.1 will still work in 2.0.  The main differences are
compatiblity with more operating systems and better support for
non-English character sets.  In particular:

- Bug Fixes

A number of minor bugs and major incompatibility problems have been
fixed.  figlet 2.1 should compile correctly on many operating systems
for which figlet 2.0 did not.

- "-F" removed

The "-F" command line option, which used to list all the available
fonts, has been removed, since it made figlet incompatible with some
operating systems.  It has been replaced by the "figlist" script.  The
"showfigfonts" script has been updated so that it no longer requires
the "-F" option to be available.

- Extended character set

The figlet font file format has been extended to allow an arbitrarily
large number of characters.  The ISO Latin-1 character set, which
includes many accented letters and special symbols, has been added to
most standard fonts.

- Right-to-left printing

figlet can now print right-to-left.  This can be specified on the
command line ("-R") or in the font file.  Thus, for example, Hebrew and
Arabic fonts can be handled more easily.  [Anyone wanna design an
Arabic font?]

- Right-justified text

figlet can now right justify its output.  This is the default when
right-to-left printing is selected.  It can also be specified on the
command line ("-r").

- Control files

figlet now supports "control files".  These can be used to change which
character figlet will print when it sees a certain input character --
sort of an expanded version of the "-D" option.  For example, a control
file could convert lower-case letters to upper-case or map certain
ASCII characters to accented letters.  Control file names end with the
suffix ".flc".  Select a control file by using "-C controlfile" on the
command line.  Several controlfiles can be used at once by giving
muliple "-C" options.

- Utility Interface

There is now a way for programs that use figlet to get various
information from figlet, for example, what version of figlet is being
used or the name of the default font directory.  This information is
gotten through the "-I" option.  See the man page for details.


***** What else is new?

The chkfont program has been revised to handle the extended font file
format; all the standard fonts have been revised as well.  The new
versions are available as part of the 2.1 release or separately by
anonymous FTP at

ftp.isu.edu:pub/figlet/fonts/ours


***** Is figlet 2.1 available for non-Unix operating systems?

Not as of this writing (August 16, 1994).  How soon it becomes
available depends on how soon someone wants to do a port.  However,
figlet 2.1 just might compile on whatever OS you're wondering about, so
give it a try.


***** Where can I get more info?

If you have any other questions about figlet, send e-mail to
<figlet@uiuc.edu>.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

				Glenn Chappell   <><
				e-mail: ggc@uiuc.edu