[SOLVED] Text art problems

[badmoodguy88]

I thought it might be cool to make some game that uses ASCII Art like roguelikes.
But I ran into a problem. First off roguelikes use a number of Unicode character that I understand are just not part of the 95 printable ASCII characters. So I had some trouble displaying this

         ▄             ▄█▄ █▄       ▄
     ▄█▀█▓ ▄▓▀▀█▀ ▀▀▀█▓▀▀ ▀▀    ▄█▀█▓▀▀▀▀▀▓▄▀██▀▀
    ██  ██ ▀██▄▄ ▄█  ▀ ░▒ ░▒   ██  ██ ▄█▄ █▀ ██
    █▓▄▀██  ▄ ▀█▌▓█    ▒▓ ▒▓   █▓▄▀██ ▓█ ▀▄  █▓
    █▒  █▓ ██▄▓▀ ▀█▄▄█▄▓█ ▓█   █▒  █▓ ▒█  ▓█▄ ▒
        ▀▒           ▀  ▀ █▀       ▀▒  ▀  █▀  ░

I can live with that, though it does put a damper on things.

The real problem is that the strings are not mono spaced (all the characters take up the same amount of space)
even when you use a font that is supposed to be mono spaced like Courier New.

So This

.########.##.....##....###....##.....##.########..##.......########
.##........##...##....##.##...###...###.##.....##.##.......##......
.##.........##.##....##...##..####.####.##.....##.##.......##......
.######......###....##.....##.##.###.##.########..##.......######..
.##.........##.##...#########.##.....##.##........##.......##......
.##........##...##..##.....##.##.....##.##........##.......##......
.########.##.....##.##.....##.##.....##.##........########.########

Ends up looking like this-
.########.##.....##....###....##.....##.########.. ##.......########
.##........##...##....##.##...###...###.##.....##. ##.......##......
.##.........##.##....##...##..####.####.##.....##. ##.......##......
.######......###....##.....##.##.###.##.########.. ##.......######..
.##.........##.##...#########.##.....##.##........ ##.......##......
.##........##...##..##.....##.##.....##.##........ ##.......##......
.########.##.....##.##.....##.##.....##.##........ ########.########

Here is a work in progress that just displays some ASCII aret
textgame.rar

I suppose I could try to display a grid of char characters (I estimate it would take about 546 assuming 12 by 12 squares.
Because it says char displays Unicode character I guess I could use these
Box drawing characters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  	  	0 	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 	6 	7 	8 	9 	A 	B 	C 	D 	E 	F
2500 	  	─ 	━ 	│ 	┃ 	┄ 	┅ 	┆ 	┇ 	┈ 	┉ 	┊ 	┋ 	┌ 	┍ 	┎ 	┏
2510 	  	┐ 	┑ 	┒ 	┓ 	└ 	┕ 	┖ 	┗ 	┘ 	┙ 	┚ 	┛ 	├ 	┝ 	┞ 	┟
2520 	  	┠ 	┡ 	┢ 	┣ 	┤ 	┥ 	┦ 	┧ 	┨ 	┩ 	┪ 	┫ 	┬ 	┭ 	┮ 	┯
2530 	  	┰ 	┱ 	┲ 	┳ 	┴ 	┵ 	┶ 	┷ 	┸ 	┹ 	┺ 	┻ 	┼ 	┽ 	┾ 	┿
2540 	  	╀ 	╁ 	╂ 	╃ 	╄ 	╅ 	╆ 	╇ 	╈ 	╉ 	╊ 	╋ 	╌ 	╍ 	╎ 	╏
2550 	  	═ 	║ 	╒ 	╓ 	╔ 	╕ 	╖ 	╗ 	╘ 	╙ 	╚ 	╛ 	╜ 	╝ 	╞ 	╟
2560 	  	╠ 	╡ 	╢ 	╣ 	╤ 	╥ 	╦ 	╧ 	╨ 	╩ 	╪ 	╫ 	╬ 	╭ 	╮ 	╯
2570 	  	╰ 	╱ 	╲ 	╳ 	╴ 	╵ 	╶ 	╷ 	╸ 	╹ 	╺ 	╻ 	╼ 	╽ 	╾ 	╿

  	  	0 	1 	2 	3 	4 	5 	6 	7 	8 	9 	A 	B 	C 	D 	E 	F
2580 	  	▀ 	▁ 	▃ 	▃ 	▄ 	▅ 	▆ 	▇ 	█ 	▉ 	▊ 	▋ 	▌ 	▍ 	▎ 	▏
2590 	  	▐ 	░ 	▒ 	▓ 	▔ 	▕ 	▖ 	▗ 	▘ 	▙ 	▚ 	▛ 	▜ 	▝ 	▞ 	▟

At that point I think it might be about as easy to just use tile sets. If I did not end up making all the tiles myself.
-----------------------------------------------------------
(Post made several hours latter)


I just spent a few hour figuring it out.

The extended ASCII codes (character code 128-255)
There are several different variations of the 8-bit ASCII table. The table below is according to ISO 8859-1, also called ISO Latin-1. Codes 129-159 contain the Microsoft® Windows Latin-1 extended characters.

ASCII Code - The extended ASCII table

This is not the extended ASCII you find on most table when you search "extended ASCII". Those seem to be an extended ASCII used in Dos.

What this means is the even when using unicode char it is still impossible to display Box drawing characters like these▐ ░ ▒ ▓.

This displays a number of one character strings in a grid so that they are mono spaced.
I tried to display some extended characters but that part is grayed off because it does not work in it's current state.

here is a second WIP It just displays some ascii 32-126
textgame (WIP)2.rar

[Tiptup300]

Did you turn off AutoKerning?

[badmoodguy88]

yeah it is off by default

but just for the heck of it i turned AutoKerning on
and for some reason it makes it work

BEFORE:
*image removed for passing filter*

I guess for mono spaced font the information about spacing everything evenly is Kerning data. Go figure.
It is good to know though.

[itsnotabigtruck]

You can add the necessary code points as CharacterRegions in your spritefont file, along with any others that you need. XNA doesn't use ASCII or "extended ASCII" anywhere - everything is UTF-16.

[badmoodguy88]

Thank you itsnotabigtruck!

I had tried making the chracter region 32-9631 but that was just way to many characters.

Anyway, I finally got what I was supposed to do.

    <CharacterRegions>
      <CharacterRegion>
        <Start>&# 32;</Start>
        <End>&# 32;</End>
      </CharacterRegion>
      <CharacterRegion>
        <Start>&# 9472</Start>
        <End>&# 9631</End>
      </CharacterRegion>
    </CharacterRegions>
  </Asset>
</XnaContent>

I I don't put a space between "&#" and a number it just prints that character in this message.

[itsnotabigtruck]

Awesome.

Yeah, this forum software seems to handle XML character entities (like those in your code) quite oddly. :/