---
title: The Monospace Web
author: Oskar Wickström
date: August 2024
lang: en
---

## Abstract

Monospace fonts are dear to many of us. 
Some find them more readable, consistent, and beautiful, and than their proportional alternatives.
Maybe we're just brainwashed from spending years in terminals?
Or are we hopelessly nostalgic?
In any case, I like them, and that's why I started experimenting with all-monospace Web.

We use the monospace grid to align text and draw diagrams.

## The Basics

Look at this lovely horizontal break:

<hr>

Or a plain old bulleted list:

* Banana
* Paper boat
* Cucumber
* Rocket

## Trees

It's nice to visualize trees.
This is a regular unordered list with a _tree_ class:

<ul class="tree">
<li>

**/dev/nvme0n1p2**

* usr                               
    * local                         
    * share                         
    * libexec                       
    * include                       
    * sbin                          
    * src                           
    * lib64                         
    * lib                           
    * bin                           
    * games                         
        * solitaire
        * snake
        * tic-tac-toe
    * media                         
* media                             
* run                               
* tmp                               
</li>
</ul>

## Tables

We can use regular tables that automatically adjust to the monospace grid.
They're responsive. 

<table>
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th class="width-min">Name</th>
    <th class="width-auto">Dimensions</th>
    <th class="width-min">Position</th>
  </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
  <tr>
    <td>Boboli Obelisk</td>
    <td>1.41m &times; 1.41m &times; 4.87m</td>
    <td>43°45'50.78"N 11°15'3.34"E</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Pyramid of Khafre</td>
    <td>215.25m &times; 215.25m &times; 136.4m</td>
    <td>29°58'34"N 31°07'51"E</td>
  </tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Note that only one column is allowed to grow.

## ASCII Drawings

We can draw in `<pre>` tags using [box-drawing characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_characters):

```
╭─────────────────╮
│ MONOSPACE ROCKS │
╰─────────────────╯
```

To have it stand out a bit more, we can wrap it in a `<figure>` tag, and why not also add a `<figcaption>`.

<figure>
<pre>
┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐
│Actor 1│ │Actor 2│ │Actor 3│
└───┬───┘ └───┬───┘ └───┬───┘
    │         │         │    
    │         │  msg 1  │    
    │         │────────►│    
    │         │         │    
    │  msg 2  │         │    
    │────────►│         │    
┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐
│Actor 1│ │Actor 2│ │Actor 3│
└───────┘ └───────┘ └───────┘</pre>
<figcaption>Example: Message passing.</figcaption>
</figure>

Let's go wild and draw a chart!

<figure><pre>
                      Things I Have
                                              
    │                                     ████ Usable
15  │
    │                                     ░░░░ Broken
    │
12  │             ░            
    │             ░            
    │   ░         ░              
 9  │   ░         ░              
    │   ░         ░              
    │   ░         ░                    ░
 6  │   █         ░         ░          ░
    │   █         ░         ░          ░
    │   █         ░         █          ░
 3  │   █         █         █          ░
    │   █         █         █          ░
    │   █         █         █          ░
 0  └───▀─────────▀─────────▀──────────▀─────────────
      Socks     Jeans     Shirts   USB Drives
</pre></figure>

## Images

![A room in an old French castle.](castle.jpg)