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Pomo includes four built-in ASCII art fonts to customize how the countdown timer appears. Each font has a unique visual style for displaying digits 0-9 and the colon separator.

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Available fonts

All fonts are rendered using Unicode box-drawing characters and blocks for clean terminal display.
mono12 (default) - Clean, monospaced font with rounded edgesThis is the default font used when asciiArt.font is not specified or when no configuration file exists.

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Style characteristics

  • Medium height (7 lines)
  • Rounded corners using ▀ and ▄ blocks
  • Clear digit separation
  • Works well in any terminal size

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Example digits

   ▄▄▄▄       ▄▄▄       ▄▄▄▄▄      ▄▄▄▄▄   
  ██▀▀██    █▀██     █▀▀▀▀██▄   █▀▀▀▀██▄ 
 ██    ██     ██           ██         ▄██ 
 ██ ██ ██     ██         ▄█▀        █████  
 ██    ██     ██       ▄█▀             ▀██ 
  ██▄▄██   ▄▄▄██▄▄▄  ▄██▄▄▄▄▄   █▄▄▄▄██▀ 
   ▀▀▀▀    ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀  ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀    ▀▀▀▀▀

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Timer example

    ▄▄▄▄          ▄▄▄▄▄   
   ██▀▀██    ▄▄  █▀▀▀▀██▄ 
  ██    ██   ██        ▄██ 
  ██ ██ ██        ▄▄▄▄ ██ 
  ██    ██   ██  ██    ██ 
   ██▄▄██    ▀▀   ██▄▄██▀ 
    ▀▀▀▀           ▀▀▀▀
25:00 displayed in mono12 font

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Configuration

To use a specific font, set the asciiArt.font option in your pomo.yaml configuration file:
pomo.yaml
asciiArt:
  enabled: true
  font: "rebel"        # Options: mono12, rebel, ansi, ansiShadow
  color: "#FF6B6B"     # Optional: customize the color

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Font options

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asciiArt.font
string
default:"mono12"
The ASCII art font to use for the timer display.Valid values:
  • mono12 - Default rounded monospace font
  • rebel - Bold angular font with shading
  • ansi - Compact solid block font
  • ansiShadow - Box-drawing bordered font
Example:
asciiArt:
  font: "ansiShadow"
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asciiArt.enabled
boolean
default:"true"
Enable or disable ASCII art timer display.When disabled, Pomo shows a simpler text-based timer.Example:
asciiArt:
  enabled: false  # Use simple text timer
​
asciiArt.color
string
default:"#FF6B6B"
Hex color code for the ASCII art timer display.Supports standard hex color format with # prefix.Example:
asciiArt:
  color: "#00FF00"  # Bright green

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Font comparison

Choose a font based on your terminal size and visual preference:
FontHeightStyleBest for
mono127 linesClean, roundedDefault choice, balanced design
rebel8 linesBold, angularLarge terminals, maximum impact
ansi5 linesCompact, solidSmall terminals, minimal space
ansiShadow6 linesBordered, elegantProfessional appearance

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Technical implementation

Fonts are defined in ui/ascii/fonts.go as arrays of 11 strings:
  • Indices 0-9: Digit characters 0-9
  • Index 10: Colon separator (:)
Each font character is stored as a multi-line string with consistent width for proper alignment in the terminal.

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Font constants

const (
    Mono12      = "mono12"
    Rebel       = "rebel"
    Ansi        = "ansi"
    AnsiShadow  = "ansiShadow"
    DefaultFont = Mono12
)

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Terminal compatibility

All fonts use Unicode characters that are widely supported in modern terminals:
  • Required: Unicode support (UTF-8 encoding)
  • Recommended: True color support for custom colors
  • Works with: iTerm2, Terminal.app, Alacritty, kitty, Windows Terminal, GNOME Terminal, etc.
If ASCII art doesn’t render correctly, check that your terminal:
  1. Has UTF-8 encoding enabled
  2. Uses a font that includes Unicode box-drawing characters (most monospace fonts do)
  3. Has sufficient terminal width (at least 40 columns recommended)

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Disabling ASCII art

If you prefer a simpler display or encounter rendering issues:
pomo.yaml
asciiArt:
  enabled: false
This will show a minimal text-based timer instead of the large ASCII art display.

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