lfg-format

⸺ by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

The lfg-format is an image .

The lfg-format is meant to not only be , , and , but — it is also meant to be .

I.e., not only is the lfg-format meant to be easy for (non-programmer) humans, programmers, and machines (i.e., computers) to read and understand it, but — it is also meant to be easy for a (non-programmer) human to create and edit them in a .

These concerns are placed higher than other concerns, such as file-size minimization. (Compression and other concerns are handled at other levels.)

Name

"LFG" is an initialization of "legible friendly graphics".

"Modernized"

One way to think of the lfg-format is — what if you were going to try to "modernize" the data-format used to create and .

The intent behind the lfg-format is — it should be a easy to create an lfg-format image as it is to create and .

Related Formats

The lfg-format is somewhat (also) similar to the , the , the , the , and the — in that they are also meant to create and edit them in a .

Example

Here is an example lfg-format image:

	LFG/1
	8
	16
	25
	#55ffff ■
	#ff55ff □

	■■■■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□□□□□□
	■□□□□□□□
	■■■■■■■■

A lfg-format image is a file that starts with the "magic" on the first line:

	LFG/1

(The "LFG" has to be a letters.)

Next comes the width of the image data. In the case of this example, the width is:

	8

After that comes the height of the image data.. In the case of this example, the height is:

	16

(And thus the image data will be 8×16.)

And then after that comes magnification. In the case of this example, the magnification is:

	25

(And thus, even though our image data will be 8×16, the actual image will be 200×400 — because 8 times 25 equals 200, and 16 timrs 25 equals 400.)

After that comes the , which includes the character used for that color. In the case of this example, it is:

	#55ffff ■
	#ff55ff □

Our example only has 2 colors. But we could have used more or less colors than the number of colors this example had.

We know then the rows end because there will be a single empty line.

After that is the image data. In the case of this example, it is:

	■■■■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□■■■■■
	■□□□□□□□
	■□□□□□□□
	■■■■■■■■

End-Of-Line

There are 3 valid characters:

LF (U+000A) (line-feed)
• NEL (U+0085) (next-line)
• LS (U+2028) (line-separator)

The CR (U+000D) character is ignored.

(We care about end-of-line characters for the magic line, the width line, and height line, the magnification line, and color lines, and the empty line after the the color lines — but don't care about end-of-line characters after that.)

Image Data

and spacing characters within image data is not significant.

For example, this is the same image as before:

	LFG/1
	8
	16
	25
	#55ffff ■
	#ff55ff □

	■■■■■■■■■□□■■■■■■□□■■■■■