In a console app, an ascii spinner can be used, like the GUI wait cursor, to indicate that work is being done. A common spinner cycles through these 4 characters: '|', '/', '-', '\'
What are some other cyclical animation sequences to spice up a console application?
There used to be a a DOS linker named blinker, by Blink Inc. It would display an animation similar to this while it was working:
(o)(o)
(-)(-)
(_)(_)
With the first frame displaying for about a second, and the other two animating briefly once a second or two, making the command line appear to blink its eyes. The effect was pretty cool, actually.
The linker even had options to blink one eye, and you could choose which eye would blink.
I've used a cycle of
Working.
Working..
Working...
Inspirational I know
Lots of choices with Unicode, including ⌚ and ⌛!
← ↖ ↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙
▁ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃
▉▊▋▌▍▎▏▎▍▌▋▊▉
▖ ▘ ▝ ▗
┤ ┘ ┴ └ ├ ┌ ┬ ┐
◢ ◣ ◤ ◥
◰ ◳ ◲ ◱
◴ ◷ ◶ ◵
◐ ◓ ◑ ◒
◡◡ ⊙⊙ ◠◠
⣾⣽⣻⢿⡿⣟⣯⣷ ⠁⠂⠄⡀⢀⠠⠐⠈ The entire braille block, even in random order http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/braille_patterns/images.htm
If you have more than one character worth of space, you can use animated ASCII art. For example, you can do a progress bar like:
[ ]
[== ]
[===== ]
[======== ]
or a "bouncing ball" progress indicator (that moves back and forth) like:
(-*--------) // moving -->
(-----*----) // moving -->
(---------*) // moving -->
(--------*-) // moving <--
(---*------) // moving <--
(*---------) // moving <--
Something more advanced like this loading animation might also work.
Edit: There's also the "executive desk toy"
╔════╤╤╤╤════╗ ╔════╤╤╤╤════╗ ╔════╤╤╤╤════╗ ╔════╤╤╤╤════╗
║ │││ \ ║ ║ ││││ ║ ║ / │││ ║ ║ ││││ ║
║ │││ O ║ -> ║ ││││ ║ -> ║ O │││ ║ -> ║ ││││ ║
║ OOO ║ ║ OOOO ║ ║ OOO ║ ║ OOOO ║
And of course there's the ultimate example of animated ASCII art, if you had the time to implement something similar (it would take "spicing up a console application" to the extreme).
Edit: If your console supports color, you can also spice up an otherwise-boring standard spinner by cycling through colors as you spin. Start off with a red line, then slowly fade through the rainbow up to violet as you spin. This can look especially cool with the "bouncing ball" indicator above if you have the ball "paint" the bar a different color on every pass.
I have seen
echo -e "\033[41;1m$1 \033[0m"
In bash to continually build a progress bar based on a block character.
Courtesy of a co-worker of mine, here's a nifty implementation in C:
#define COW 2172
char* moo = "MO ";
void wrap() {
int i,j;
for(i=0;doSomething(i);i++)
j=COW-moo[i&3],fputs(&j,stderr);
}
From my analysis, it only works on a little-endian machine with at least 32-bit words and the ASCII character set. But it's rather diabolically clever.
Makes a cute "rain" effect:
using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
namespace CSharpSandbox
{
class Program
{
static Random rnd = new Random();
static char[,] Step(char[,] matrix)
{
int width = matrix.GetUpperBound(0) + 1;
int height = matrix.GetUpperBound(1) + 1;
char[,] res = new char[width, height];
for (int h = 0; h < height; h++)
{
for (int w = 0; w < width; w++)
{
char c;
if (h == 0)
c = rnd.Next(2) == 0 ? ' ' : '*';
else
c = matrix[w, h - 1];
res[w, h] = c;
}
}
return res;
}
static string ToString(char[,] matrix)
{
int width = matrix.GetUpperBound(0) + 1;
int height = matrix.GetUpperBound(1) + 1;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int h = 0; h < height; h++)
{
for (int w = 0; w < width; w++)
{
sb.Append(matrix[w, h]);
}
sb.AppendLine();
}
return sb.ToString();
}
static Timer timer;
static void Spinner()
{
char[,] matrix = new char[10, 5];
timer = new Timer(_ =>
{
string s = ToString(matrix);
Console.SetCursorPosition(0, 0);
Console.Write(s);
matrix = Step(matrix);
},
null,
0,
200);
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Spinner();
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
I wrote one that cycled through the standard \ | / - but the left a _ and moved on to the next position. It was intended to look as though there were a series of spinners, each dropping to the floor before the next one started. The need for this was that my program was repeatedly trying something and waiting for a certain result. I wanted to represent each time it tried and also how many times it had tried without using up a lot of screen space (or count).
After I wrote it it looked a lot less cool than I thought it would, but it served its purpose.
Definetely LOLLERSKATES!
/\O | _O | O
/\/ | //|_ | /_
/\ | | | |\
/ \ | /| | / |
LOL LOL | LLOL | LOLLOL
-----------+----------+-----------
Frame 0 | Frame 1 | Frame 2
fish is a Python module that animates an ASCII fish going back and forth, and who doesn't like the rare console fish?
>))'>
>))'>
>))'>
<'((<
<'((<
__o
_`\<._
(_)/ (_)
__o
_`\<._
(_)/ (_)
__o
_`\<._
(_)/ (_)
...
o__
_.>/ _
(_) \(_)
o__
_.>/ _
(_) \(_)
o__
_.>/ _
(_) \(_)
If you know how far through the process you are I like the percentage bar. It looks nice, feels intuitive and is easy to implement:
| 0%
||||| 5%
|||||||||||||||||||||| 26%
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 100%
(Examples above are not exact)
All taken from:
http://llizard.cwahi.net/animals.html
Bats Flying!
/^v^\
/^v^\ /^v^\
/^v^\
/^v^\
Flap flap!
\^v^/
\^v^/ \^v^/
\^v^/
\^v^/
Wow wow An Archer!
/\
/__\_{)
|--<<)__\
\ / (
\/ )
/|
\ \
~ ~
/| \
/_|_{)/
---<< | | )
\ | (
\| )
/|
\ \
~ ~
\
/|{)/
---<< +-|-)
\| (
)
/|
\ \
~ ~
/\
/__\_{)
|--<<)__\
\ / (
\/ __)
\ |__
~ ~
/| \
/_|_{)/
---<< | | )
\ | (
\|__)
\ |__
~ ~
\
/|{)/
---<< +-|-)
\| (
__)
\ |__
~ ~
Super Cyclist
---------- __o
-------- _ \<,_
------- (*)/ (*)
Wheeeee!
Flying a Kite
/\
'\/
' +
' +
' +
' +
' +
' +
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
__ '
\o . '
\\/
/\
/ /
This fishing one is pretty hillarious as well