ASCIIBIRD v3 — The World's Best IRC ASCII Art Editor

⚠️ v3 is currently in TESTING. Expect bugs. For the stable version, visit classic.birdnest.live.

ASCIIBIRD is a browser-based IRC ASCII art editor for creating and editing mIRC art. It's 100% client-side — everything runs in your browser and persists to IndexedDB. No server, no accounts, no API keys.

Try it live: asciibird.birdnest.live

Support ASCIIBIRD and birdnest streaming by jumping on our Patreon!

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What's New in v3

v3 is a complete modernization — new build system, new framework, new language, and a pile of new features.

Core Modernization

Before (v2)	After (v3)
Vue 2.6 + Options API	Vue 3.5 + Composition API (<script setup>)
Vuex 3	Pinia 3
vue-cli (Webpack)	Vite 8
JavaScript	TypeScript
Jest	Vitest 4
ESLint 6	ESLint 9 + typescript-eslint
Tailwind CSS 2	Tailwind CSS 3
localStorage (~5MB)	IndexedDB (unlimited)
7 npm dependencies for UI primitives	Headless UI + VueUse

New Features

• 18 brush shapes — circle, square, cross, diamond, ring, star, diagonal, checkerboard, frame, edge, and more (was 4)
• Half-block editing mode — full brush, eraser, mirror, select, and UI constraints for half-block art (▀▄█)
• Shape tool — draw lines, rectangles, and ellipses on the canvas (press L)
• Gradient fill — pick two colors, click two corners, get a smooth gradient
• Border/frame generator — 8 box-drawing styles (single, double, rounded, thick, dashed, dotted, etc.)
• Find & Replace — search and replace characters, colors, or patterns across the canvas or selection
• Color replace tool — click to pick source color, click to replace everywhere (press R)
• Recent colors strip — LRU of last 12 used colors, persisted across sessions
• IRC line length warning — status bar indicator shows byte count per line, yellow >400 bytes, red >500 bytes
• Undo/redo count — status bar shows ⟲ N | ⟳ M for undo/redo steps
• Selection transforms — copy, cut, paste, delete selection with ghost preview
• Shift+Arrow nudge — move selection by 1 block with Shift+Arrow keys
• Export to ANSI — convert mIRC art to ANSI terminal format (256-color)
• Export to HTML — styled HTML with entity escaping
• Plain text export — strip color codes, clipboard or file
• ANSI import — import ANSI art files
• Crop to content — trim canvas to actual art bounds
• Merge layer down / Duplicate layer — with keyboard shortcuts
• Tab inline rename — double-click tab title to rename
• Panel-specific icons — each floating panel has its own icon
• Smart panel positions — panels and canvas start in proper positions
• Middle-click panel minimize — middle-click title bar to collapse

Bugs Fixed

• Flood fill recursion limit on large ASCIIs → iterative fill with explicit stack
• Hidden layers don't auto-select next visible layer → findNextVisibleLayer()
• Half-block import background persistence → import/export round-trip verified
• Panel dragging stuck after right-click → PointerEvent safety nets
• Brush tool line gaps → Bresenham interpolation
• Mirror mode undo corruption → duplicate-position guard
• Page scrollbar visible → fullscreen fixed layout
• Modals behind floating panels → z-index stacking fix
• Menu bar dropdowns behind panels → z-index stacking fix
• Font inconsistency across UI → JetBrains Mono everywhere, Hack canvas only

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Feature Overview

• Tabbed ASCII editing — multiple documents open at once
• Layers — show/hide, reorder, rename (double-click), merge down, duplicate
• 99 mIRC colors — full extended color palette
• Brush tool — 18 shapes, adjustable size, rotate/flip, mirror X/Y
• Select tool — copy, cut, paste, delete, nudge (Shift+Arrow), transform
• Text tool — click and type, arrow key support
• Fill tool — fill by fg/bg/char with filter checkboxes
• Eraser — per-property erase (fg only, bg only, char only)
• Color picker — eyedropper to grab fg/bg/char from any block
• Image overlay — trace images on the canvas (URL-based)
• Import — mIRC from clipboard, file, URL, ANSI files
• Export — mIRC clipboard/file/POST, ANSI file, HTML, plain text
• Brush Library & History — save, reuse, and organize brushes
• Brush Preview — editable preview panel with tool support
• Context menus — right-click on canvas, brushes, tabs, layers
• Undo/Redo — configurable history limit, diff-based for performance
• Grid mode — Alt+G to toggle grid overlay
• Mirror X/Y — draw symmetrically
• State persistence — everything saved to IndexedDB automatically
• Export/import state file — backup and restore full workspace

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Vue 3.5 (Composition API, <script setup>)
State	Pinia 3 + pinia-plugin-persistedstate
Build	Vite 8
Styling	Tailwind CSS 3, SCSS
Language	TypeScript
Testing	Vitest 4 (1400+ tests)
Linting	ESLint 9 + typescript-eslint + plugin:vue
UI Primitives	Headless UI, VueUse
Storage	IndexedDB via idb-keyval
Compression	LZ-String
CI/CD	GitHub Actions → Bunny.net

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Project Setup

yarn install          # Install dependencies
yarn dev              # Dev server (localhost:5180)
yarn build            # Production build → dist/
yarn lint             # ESLint check
yarn test             # Vitest unit tests
yarn test --coverage  # Tests with coverage report
npx tsc --noEmit      # TypeScript type check

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Big Shout Outs to Patrons

shrew, octopus, j-hex, nes, mouse, dingo, eraser, pancakes

special thanks to slime aka botmaster slime for the wonderful bot integration with asciibird

What Chatters are Saying

<ralph> ascii bird is so easy a drunk LQ chatter like myself can use, and does use it
<ralph> asciibird is to chatters what the ak-47 is to kids in Sierra Leone
<ralph> POWERFUL STUF

<kayos> man asciibird is legit revolutionary shit

<acidvegas> ngl ive seen asciibird on github
<acidvegas> first time using it rn
<acidvegas> this is v impressive jewbird
<acidvegas> props
<acidvegas> beautiful design
<acidvegas> looks very iOS circa 2015

<higgs> asciibird changed my life.

ASCII Art Created with ASCIIBIRD

References

• http://anti.teamidiot.de/static/nei/*/extended_mirc_color_proposal.html — 99 colours info
• https://modern.ircdocs.horse/formatting.html#color — mIRC formatting
• https://www.mirc.com/colors.html — mIRC colour standard
• https://www.oocities.org/spunk1111/history.htm — History of ASCII art by Joan Stark (jgs)

ASCII Resources

• https://mircart.org/ — IRC ASCII art
• https://asdf.us/asciiblaster/ — Asciiblaster (ASCIIBIRD is loosely based on this)
• https://acid.vegas/asciimaker — ASCII Creator from acidvegas
• https://github.com/ircart/resources — IRC ASCII resources
• http://wepump.in/ascii/ — Classic IRC ASCII art
• https://irc.watch/ascii/ — IRC ASCIIs you can load into ASCIIBIRD

Hello to Friends on the IRC

darkmage (confirmed snitch), l0de, bex, blarf, sludg, shart, chode, corn, ralph, jrra, kuntz, moony, sniff, scd, aztec, astro, anji, b-rex, bengt, butth0le, canada420, clamkin, deakin, dumbguy, ElBurro, interdome, syn, darkness, vae, gowce, moneytree, Retarded, spoon, sylar, zen, bj0rn, stovepipe, morthrane, chrono, acidvegas, again, hgc, durendal, knio, mavericks, pyrex, sh, irie, seirdy, sq, stratum, WeEatnKid, dieforirc, tater, buttvomit, luldangs, MichealK, AnalMan, poccri, vap0r, kakama, fregyXin, kayos, stovepipe, higgs, Audasity, PsyMaster, perplexa, alyosha, Darn, efsenable, EchoShun, dumbguy, HorseCrusherKristian, phobos, COMPUTERS, dave, nance, sthors