dino-dna 0.1.3

DNA: biology-themed terminal animations with DNA/RNA matrix rain and rotating codon-aware helices.
Documentation
  • Coverage
  • 62.5%
    5 out of 8 items documented0 out of 5 items with examples
  • Size
  • Source code size: 7.54 MB This is the summed size of all the files inside the crates.io package for this release.
  • Documentation size: 806.86 kB This is the summed size of all files generated by rustdoc for all configured targets
  • Ø build duration
  • this release: 4s Average build duration of successful builds.
  • all releases: 4s Average build duration of successful builds in releases after 2024-10-23.
  • Links
  • crates.io
  • Dependencies
    • —
  • Versions
  • Owners
  • Jakeelamb

DNA

DNA is a zero-dependency Rust terminal toy for biology-themed animation: rotating codon-aware helices, DNA/RNA matrix rain, stable base-color palettes, and keyboard controls that feel good in a normal shell.

It is intentionally small. The shipped CLI uses ANSI escape sequences, restores terminal state on clean exit, and keeps the rendering path in plain Rust.

Preview

TUI recording

Five seconds of the helix view followed by five seconds of matrix rain.

DNA terminal recording

MP4 recording

Rotating codon helix

Rotating DNA codon helix

ATCG matrix rain

ATCG matrix rain

Install

From crates.io after the dino-dna crate is published:

cargo install dino-dna
DNA

From this source checkout:

cd dna
cargo run --bin DNA -- helix --dna

The package name is dino-dna, the library crate is dna, and the installed binary is DNA.

Run

DNA              # DNA helix
DNA h r          # RNA helix
DNA m d          # DNA matrix
DNA matrix -r    # RNA matrix
DNA --help       # Full CLI help

helix --dna is the default.

The codon wheel is experimental and disabled in the default build:

cargo run --bin DNA --features codon-wheel -- codon

Controls

Key Action
Left / Right Cycle animations
Up / Down Change speed; Down reaches 0.00x freeze
+ / - Change visual scale
c Cycle color palettes
f Toggle focus mode and hide the footer
q or Ctrl-C Quit cleanly

Modes

Mode Aliases Alphabet options
Helix h, helix d, dna, --dna; r, rna, --rna
Matrix rain m, matrix, rain d, dna, --dna; r, rna, --rna
Codon wheel codon, codons, table Requires --features codon-wheel

Color Palettes

Press c while running to cycle:

  • classic
  • base colors
  • ice
  • fire
  • mono

In base colors, bases stay stable across every view:

Base Color
A Red
C Blue
G Yellow
T / U Green

Package Surface

The published crate includes only the release-critical files:

  • Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock
  • LICENSE
  • README.md
  • assets/*.gif and assets/*.mp4
  • src/**/*.rs

Local recordings, generated frames, package tarballs, and scratch artifacts are ignored by default.

Development

cargo fmt --all --check
cargo test
cargo test --features codon-wheel
cargo package --list
cargo publish --dry-run

The preview GIFs are generated from tools/generate_gifs.py; the generator is kept in the repository but excluded from the crates.io package.

License

MIT