bbcat for macOS

A native AppKit viewer for ANSI, ASCII, DIZ, NFO, DarkDraw, ArtWorx, RIPscrip, and XBin artwork, ported from bbcat-gtk. The Swift interface uses the original Rust bbcat decoder and renderer through a small C-compatible bridge.

Features

• ANSI (.ans), ASCII (.asc), DIZ (.diz), and NFO (.nfo)
• DarkDraw (.ddw), ArtWorx (.adf), RIPscrip (.rip), and XBin (.xb, .xbin)
• Opening from Finder, the app's file picker, or a path passed to the app
• Static artwork and timed ANSI animation playback
• SAUCE titles, authors, and dates in the window title
• Crisp ×1 and ×2 rendering with responsive aspect-fit display
• Native-size scrolling for artwork larger than the available screen
• Format-specific, cropped Finder thumbnails with extension badges
• Full, uncropped Quick Look previews with the Space bar
• Optional bundled bbcat CLI, installed or removed from the app menu as ~/.local/bin/bbcat

Install

Download bbcat-macos-arm64.zip from the latest release, unzip it, and move bbcat.app to /Applications.

Releases are ready to use on Apple silicon Macs running macOS 13 or newer; no separate Rust or bbcat installation is required. Launch bbcat once after installation to register its document types and Finder extensions.

Code

The macOS interface, document viewer, animation, and Quick Look extensions are implemented in Swift with AppKit. The Rust bridge wraps the bbcat rendering library behind a small C-compatible API shared by the app, Finder thumbnail providers, and Quick Look preview provider.

• Sources/BBCat: application and artwork viewer
• Sources/BBCatThumbnail: renderer shared by the format-specific Finder thumbnail extensions
• Sources/BBCatPreview: Quick Look previews
• RustBridge: Rust decoder and rendering bridge

The project is available under the MIT License.