giftoa 1.0.6.2

Python script which compiles a native binary that plays a GIF in ASCII on the terminal using ncurses.

Details

Compiles a native binary that plays a GIF in ASCII on the terminal using ncurses.

Demo

giftoa -i cat.gif -o cat_gif --invert && ./cat_gif

Requirements

• gcc or compatible compiler, you can specify the compiler with -cc or --compiler

• Python 3.x

• ImageMagick

• jp2a

• libncurses-dev development package for your distro

On debian based distributions:

sudo apt-get install gcc python3 imagemagick jp2a libncurses-dev

This may be or may not be required to install pip3:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

Pip Install

After you have installed the above dependencies, you can install the giftoa and rightgif scripts into your environment using the pip package manager like this:

sudo pip3 install giftoa

Or to upgrade:

sudo pip3 install giftoa --upgrade

Debian Packaging

You can also build two .deb files for the rightgif and giftoa commands seperately by running the ‘package.py’ script in the debian_packaging directory.

The giftoa .deb file will install the dependencies listed above.

Once the .deb packages are built you can install each selectively with:

sudo dpkg -i deb_package_here.deb

sudo apt-get install -f

Basic Usage

giftoa -i gif_file.gif -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

or

giftoa -i gif_file.gif [jp2a options...] (Executable is named after GIF file)

or

giftoa -i http://gifwebsite.com/somegif.gif -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

-o/–output must be specified when using a URL.

or

You can specify a directory containing JPEG files, the images in the directory will be used as frames for the animation.

They will be sorted in natural order by name, so you should include some kind of frame number at the beginning or end of each file name.

Only JPEG files will be considered, other types of files will be ignored.

If you do this, you must specify the name of the output executable explicitly.

giftoa -i directory -o output_file_name_required.exe [jp2a options...]

or

Use --stdin-frames to read a newline separated list of jpeg frames from standard input.

example:

find image_dir -mindepth 1 | sort --version-sort | giftoa --stdin-frames -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

Note that --version-sort is specific to GNU sort.

The above command emulates how passing a directory to -i behaves for the most part.

giftoa will not accept non JPEG file paths from STDIN, it will produce an error when a non JPEG is detected.

Using with rightgif companion script

rightgif.py is a simple client for rightgif

It returns a URL to a GIF that is related to whatever sentence/statement you pass as an argument.

For example:

rightgif really fat cats

You dont need to quote your query but you can:

rightgif "horrifically obese cats"

Pairing it with giftoa:

giftoa -i $(rightgif kitties) -o kitties_exe

or

giftoa -i $(rightgif kitties) -o kitties_exe && ./kitties_exe

Note: You must specify an output file when passing a URL to giftoa.

Frame Delay / FPS

-fps or --frames-per-second can be used to set a target FPS for the animation.

If not specified, it defaults to 10 frames per second.

This option cannot be used together with -fss or -fsn.

The minimum value is 1 and the maximum value is 1000000000, the value must be a whole number.

example:

giftoa -i gif_file.gif -fps 25 -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

---

-fsn or --framesleep-nanoseconds can be used to adjust the delay in nanoseconds between GIF frames.

This option cannot be used with -fps / --frames-per-second.

The minimum value is 0 and the maximum value is 999999999, the value must be a whole number.

example:

giftoa -i gif_file.gif -fsn 100000000 -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

---

-fss or --framesleep-seconds can be used to adjust the delay in seconds between GIF frames. This is in addition to whatever amount of nanoseconds you specify.

This option cannot be used with -fps / --frames-per-second.

-fsn will default to 0 when -fss is used and additional nanoseconds are not explicitly specified.

example (1 second and 100 nanoseconds):

giftoa -i gif_file.gif -fss 1 -fsn 100 -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

The minimum value is 0 and the maximum value is 2147483647, the value must also be a whole number.

C Compiler Selection

-cc or --compiler can be used to specify the compiler used to compile the binary

examples:

giftoa -i gif_file.gif -cc clang -o output_exe [jp2a options...]

jp2a Options

See jp2a -h for more options once it is installed.

jp2a homepage: https://csl.name/jp2a/