You may already know how much I love Armbian, and how much I love the link:http://bruno.verachten.fr/2021/02/18/How-to-Install-Armbian-on-the-Station-P1/[Station P1], so the combination of the two is just like heaven on earth.

image::/assets/images/2021/08/20/kardashian-sassy.gif[kardashian-sassy]

I already had written a blog post for termtosvg for the OrangePi link:/2020/01/03/Terminal-recording-on-the-OrangePi-Zero/[Zero].

image::/assets/images/2021/08/20/whatever-name-I-choose.svg[whatever-name-I-choose]

=== How to record my terminal

The animated image just on top of this text has been generated thanks to two commands, the first one being:


----bash
termtosvg record -g 200x60 whatever-name-I-choose.cast
----

The `-g` is there to specify the geometry of your target terminal. The `record`part is there to tell you want to get a `.cast` file at the end. That's not mandatory, you could get your command as simple as `termtosvg`  and get the resulting SVG file as soon as you enter the `exit()` command. We'll see in a few paragraphs why I want to generate an intermediary `.cast` file.

Pretty cool, heh?

Okay, my terminal settings are not that fancy, so let's throw glitter in your eyes.

image::/assets/images/2021/08/20/glitter.svg[glitter]

Now we're talking! This "cast" has been generated with the very same command. So the command once you enter `exit()`will create a `.cast` file which will then be used to generate a SVG file (with `termtosvg`) or a GIF file with the `asciicast2gif` command.

=== How to generate the resulting SVG file

Next mandatory step: generate the SVG file. Commands do not come any simpler:


----termtosvg render glitter.cast glitter.svg----

Afterwards, you just have to move your file wherever you need it and link/import it into your documentation.
You're welcome.

Now, why the hell did I generate an intermediary `.cast `file? Well, that format can be used as an input for another project, link:https://github.com/asciinema/asciicast2gif[asciicast2gif], which is part of link:https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema[asciinema]. Asciinema uses the same `.cast` format as termtosvg, so we can generate SVG from asciinema `cast` files, GIF files from termtosvg `cast`files, and the other way around.

Now, what if you're out of luck, and termtosvg is not available on your distro? Let's try to build it by ourselves:

== Compile and install `termtosvg`




----bash
git clone https://github.com/nbedos/termtosvg.git && cd termtosvg/
== Prerequisites, use apt, apt-get, yum, whatever package manager you have on your system
sudo apt-get install -y libxml2-dev libxslt-dev python3 python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools
make build
== If you ever have an error saying that python is not available, you could make an horrible hack like
== sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python or anything smarter
== Now, let's install it. Note that 1.1.0-py3 is the version that was available at the time I wrote this blog post, your
== mileage may vary
pip3 install dist/termtosvg-1.1.0-py3-none-any.whl