xkcd ASCII Viewer

XKCD ASCII Viewer is a simple script that lets you view daily xkcd webcomics as ASCII art directly in your terminal. This idea was inspired by the feature of xkcd.com where a new comic is showcased every day. Now, there's no need to visit the xkcd website — just open your terminal and enjoy the latest comic in ASCII art.

PS: Growing up reading What If? by Randall Munroe , I developed a deep fascination for physics and computer science. I never imagined that one day I’d create a shell script to interact with xkcd comics. I can't even put into words how happy this makes me XD

Preview

Features

• Daily xkcd Comics: Automatically fetches the latest comic from the xkcd website.
• ASCII Art: Converts the comic into a readable and nostalgic ASCII art format.

Prerequisites

To use xkcd ASCII Viewer, you must have the following installed:

1. ascii-image-converter

   • This tool is essential for converting images to ASCII art.
   • Install it using Homebrew

   brew install TheZoraiz/ascii-image-converter/ascii-image-converter

2. curl (for fetching the comic data).

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/clicelee/xkcd-ascii-viewer.git
   cd xkcd-ascii-viewer

2. Run the install script:

   chmod +x install.sh
   ./install.sh

3. Done! You can now run xkcd-ascii-viewer from anywhere in your terminal.

Usage

To view the latest �xkcd comic:

xkcd-ascii-viewer

This command fetches the comic, converts it to ASCII art, and displays it in your terminal.

How It Works

• The script fetches the latest comic from the xkcd website.
• It downloads the image and converts it to ASCII art using ascii-image-converter with the following options:
  • -b: Removes the background.
  • -n: Displays in black and white.
  • -H 50: Sets the height of the output to 50 lines.
  • --threshold 120: Adjusts the brightness threshold for ASCII conversion.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues:

1. Ensure ascii-image-converter is installed:

   brew install TheZoraiz/ascii-image-converter/ascii-image-converter

2. Check if curl is installed:

   curl --version

3. Ensure you have internet access to fetch the comic.

Contributing

Feel free to submit pull requests or open issues to improve this project :)

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Enjoy the daily dose of humor and creativity from xkcd, right in your terminal!