[rbanffy]

I wonder how much of the ANSI spec we can use and still call it ANSI art. There are many sequences that were not supported by ANSI.SYS that are part of the standard, some of which are supported by modern terminals. Sadly, Tektronix graphics and ReGIS never made to the spec. Tools like `htop` and `glances` would look a lot more awesome with that.

[indyjoenz]

I think the limitations of ansi.sys became the standard because it's the implementation that everyone had access to and could reference, not because it is the exact full set-in-stone canonical specification laid down by the ANSI standards committee overlords.

I think something similar applies today. Most people are using xterms or terminals that implement a large, fairly standard set of xterm and ansi escape codes (including things like Xterm 256 color, Mouse reporting, maybe RGB colors, Unicode). So that's what "modern" ANSI art can and maybe should target. At least raise the standard for terminal art beyond the 1980s IBM-PC to modern, widely implemented standards.

Then there is the problem of there being hundreds of ANSI editors and viewers that expect 16 color Code Page 437 art. Moebius (the ANSI editor) sidesteps this problem by using .utf8.ans to imply a Utf-8 ANSI, which also implies Xterm compatible escape codes (like 256 color). Right now Durdraw does not implement any file suggestions for saving, but in the future I might do that.