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animate-chars
phiat/animate-chars
Terminal animator + Unicode explorer
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- 3mo ago
animationcliterminalunicode
# animate-chars
A CLI tool for animating Unicode characters and browsing the entire Unicode space.
> **Note:** A Rust port with enhanced TUI is available at [animate-chars-rs](https://github.com/phiat/animate-chars-rs)
## Features
- **Animate** any sequence of characters as a terminal spinner
- **Interactive browser** to explore and select Unicode characters
- **Navigate** with configurable step sizes (10, 50, 100, 500, 1000)
- **Quick jump** to popular ranges (Emoji, Box Drawing, Braille, Hiragana, Cham)
- **Save** character collections for reuse
- **Inspect** codepoints with hex and decimal values
## Quick Start
```bash
# Default animation
./animate.sh
# Interactive Unicode browser
./animate.sh -i
# Animate from saved file
./animate.sh -f selected_chars.txt
# Show codepoints
./animate.sh --show --range 0x1F600:10
```
## Interactive Mode
```bash
./animate.sh -i [START_ADDRESS]
```
```
┌─ Unicode Browser ─────────────────────────────────
│ Range: 0x0AB20-0x0AB29
│ Step: 10 Selected: (none)
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────
[0] U+AB20 ( 43808) ꬠ
[1] U+AB21 ( 43809) ꬡ
[2] U+AB22 ( 43810) ꬢ
[3] U+AB23 ( 43811) ꬣ
[4] U+AB24 ( 43812) ꬤ
[5] U+AB25 ( 43813) ꬥ
[6] U+AB26 ( 43814) ꬦ
[7] U+AB27 ( 43815)
[8] U+AB28 ( 43816) ꬨ
[9] U+AB29 ( 43817) ꬩ
0-9:select | n:next p:prev | j:+100 k:-100 | J:+1000 K:-1000
+/-:step size | g:goto | s:save q:quit
```
**Controls:**
- `0-9` — Select character (allows duplicates for sequences)
- `n/p` — Next/previous by step size (default: 10)
- `j/k` — Jump ±100 codepoints
- `J/K` — Jump ±1000 codepoints
- `+/-` — Adjust step size (10 → 50 → 100 → 500 → 1000)
- `g` — Goto specific address (shows popular ranges)
- `s` — Save selection (prompts for filename)
- `q` — Quit without saving
Always displays 10 characters per screen. Navigation is consistent and predictable.
## Options
```
--range START:LENGTH Unicode range (e.g., 0xAB20:7)
--chars "a,b,c" Comma-separated character list
--file, -f FILE Load characters from saved file
--speed SECONDS Animation speed (default: 0.1)
--timer SECONDS Run for specified duration
--once Single pass through characters
--show Print characters with codepoints (no animation)
--interactive, -i [START] Interactive Unicode browser (default: 0xAB20)
-h, --help Show help message
```
## Examples
```bash
# Fast animation
./animate.sh --speed 0.05
# Custom spinner
./animate.sh --chars "⠋,⠙,⠹,⠸,⠼,⠴,⠦,⠧,⠇,⠏"
# Browse emoji
./animate.sh -i 0x1F600
# Timed animation
./animate.sh --timer 10 --speed 0.1
```
## License
MIT
## Related
- [animate-chars-rs](https://github.com/phiat/animate-chars-rs) - Rust port with ratatui TUI framework