POD Figlet titles

Perhaps, you are like me that need to see the title of the printed script in a huge format.

You don't need to have a POD written at the starting of the script. You can just have a 5-6 lines of comments after the shebang. And use it to put the script's title in figlet format.

This is what you need to do it in LINUX...

• Install the Text_Figlet module.
• Get the figlet fonts
• add this code to your ~/.bashrc file:(* updated, THXS Tanktalus !)

  ...
  ## PARA LETRAS FIGLET EN PERL (SOLAMENTE)
  
  export FIGLIB=$HOME/path/where/you/placed/your/fonts:$HOME/another/pat
  +h/with/fonts
  
  ## [figlet "text" (name ffont) ] writes sent msg in big (optional: cho
  +oses a ffont)
  
  figlet()
  {
      local que=$1
      local fu=timesofl
  
      if [ ! -z "$2" ]
      then
          local fu=$2
      fi;
  
      if [ -n "$que" ]
      then
          perl -I$HOME/path/to/installed/FIGlet.pm -MText::FIGlet -e 'pr
  +int Text::FIGlet->new( -f=>$ARGV[0] )->figify( -A=>$ARGV[1] )' "$fu" 
  +"$que"
      fi;
  }
  ...
  

• Then try it in a new shell session (you need 'Courrier New' font to see it well):

  figlet "HAPPY 2006"
  

  ##  ##############################################    ####    ####    ####    ##
  #  ##############################################  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  #
  # ##  #####  #### #   ### #   ###  ##  ##############  ##  #   ##  #   ##  #####
  # # #  ### #  ##   ##  #   ##  #   ##  #############  ###   #  ##   #  ##     ##
  #  ##  ##  #  ###  ##  ##  ##  ### ## ############  #####  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  #
  #  ##  ##  #  ###     ###     ####    ###########  ######  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  #
  #  ##   ##  #  ##  ######  ########  ############      ###    ####    ####    ##
  ################    ####    #####   ############################################
  

• or choose another ffont:

  figlet "HAPPY 2006" avatar
  

   _     ____  ____  ____ ___  _ ____  ____  ____     _
  / \ /|/  _ \/  __\/  __\\  \///_   \/  _ \/  _ \ __/ \
  | |_||| / \||  \/||  \/| \  /  /   /| / \|| / \|/__  |
  | | ||| |-|||  __/|  __/ / /  /   /_| \_/|| \_/||\/  |
  \_/ \|\_/ \|\_/   \_/   /_/   \____/\____/\____/\____/
  

If you edit your code with SCITE, just format your comments with a monospaced font (they would read better and support figlet and ASCII-Art...)!

I made a nice example of its use while building a FREE 2006 Tree-Pad calendar. You'll need the freeware plain text editor with tabs (TreePad Lite) to use it!

[Tanktalus]

A couple minor points. First, "! -z" is more commonly known as "-n". Second, if you're running perl from the commandline anyway, use lib is usually called -I, while all other uses are called -M. And rather than dealing with lots of annoying quotes, just pass in your parameters.

figlet()
{
    local que=$1
    local fu=timesofl

    if [ -n "$2" ]
    then
        local fu=$2
    fi;

    if [ -n "$que" ]
    then
        perl -I$HOME/path/to/installed/FIGlet.pm -MText::FIGlet -e 'pr
+int Text::FIGlet->new(-f=>$ARGV[0])->figify(-A=>$ARGV[1])' "$fu" "$qu
+e"
    fi;
}

Unlike in perl where quoting a variable is a waste of time, in shell it's imperative to keep any embedded spaces unchanged. Having moved your variables from inside the perl code to purely in shell, I need to keep the quotes - but I can get rid of leaning toothpick syndrome (LTS). And then I can switch your double quotes to single quotes and now I think the whole command is much easier to look at. Personally, I would have made the whole thing just a perl script to begin with:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use lib "...";  # probably not really needed.
use Text::FIGlet;

my $figlet = Text::FIGlet->new(-f => $ARGV[1] || 'timesofl');
print $figlet->figify(-A => shift);

Of course, I'd add more comments and whatever. ;-)