TextWall

TextWall

TextWall in 2023
Created by	Duck
URL	https://textwall.cc
Launched	February 2020 (2020-02)

Introduction

TextWall is a text canvas website launched in February 2020 by Duck. It has some advantages to OWOT, such as a modern and intuitive graphical user interface, different fonts, smooth scrolling and everyone's cursors visible without a nametag script, but also some disadvantages such as the limited number of colors, and the text canvas being so much smaller than OWOT's. TextWall is still in active development as of 2023.

Users who use the website are called "textwallers" by OWOT users.

Controversy

Many OWoTers (especially anons) dislike Textwall, even going to the extent of making death threats to Textwall users and spamming the website using scripts. Each anti-Textwaller has their own reason for disliking Textwall. Many dislike the site because of its younger user base which comes onto OWoT and “ruins it”.

Feature set (aka. TODO list)

• Limited colors
  • 15 colors from 2020 to April 2022 (the r/place 2017 palette minus white)
  • 31 colors since April 2022 (the r/place 2022 palette minus white)
• Text protection
  • Precise text protection (added in July 2023)
• Text copying (added in 2021)
  • Ability to copy colors as well (added in 2022)
  • Ability to copy text decorations (added in late 2022(?))
• Registration (added in 2021)
• Smooth momentum
• Menu on top left
  • Paste button for mobile (added in 2023(?))
  • Home button - jump to spawn or center of a user world
  • Copy character
  • Open palette
  • Open settings
  • Day/night button
    • Ability to set custom background and text color
  • Warp to coordinates or a user page/world
• Asynchronous renderer
• Ability to set your client's font
  • Various monospace fonts
    • Inconsolata, Courier, Cuisine, etc.
    • Fixedsys (pixelated)
  • Various bitmap fonts
    • Terminus
    • IBM-VGA
    • Fixed
    • Unifont
• Chatbox (added in 2021/22, put on hold in 2023)
• Text decorations (added in September(?) 2022)
  • Can right click to see B/I/U/S markup
    • Animation to the context menu added in summer 2023)
• Symbols for Legacy Computing (added in September(?) 2022)
  • Used font file for all symbols
  • Removed in January 2023
  • Re-added in July 2023
    • All symbols are rendered in code
      • Includes all box-drawing characters
• Ability to see user's cursors
  • Cursors gained smooth panning in 2021(?)
  • Nametags under cursors
  • Ability to hide other user's cursors
  • Ability to become anonymous
• User walls (added in 2022)
  • Ability to protect text
    • Member areas
    • Owner areas (added in July 2023)
  • Ability to manage members
  • Ability to make wall read-only
  • Ability to see all of a user's walls
    • Ability to make wall unlisted (added in 2023)
• Client obfuscation
  • Became more rigorously obfuscated in early August 2023
  • Efforts to hinder Devtools occurred in late July 2023
• Pinch to zoom on mobile
  • Improved on/near August 7, 2023, can now zoom in precisely
• Captcha is required to access the website (began in June 2023)

Closure incidents

November 2021

On November 1st, 2021, TextWall briefly shut down for a few hours. It was reported that the lead developer lost interest in the website in the spur of the moment after some spamming raids. Shortly after the server went down, the DNS records for textwall.cc and its derivatives were deleted and TextWall was removed from the DuckGroup website. After the website was reinstated, the main page was mostly erased, and only registered users could write on any page. Registration was closed for a while.

June 2023

On June 24th, 2023, TextWall briefly shut down again until the next morning. This is assumed to have occurred in the spur of the moment right after a battle with two scripters (falling1 and KKosty4ka). Shortly after the server went down, the DNS records for textwall.cc were deleted. After the website was reinstated, only whitelisted users could access the site. The next day, access was granted to everybody, and a CAPTCHA to access the website was added.

June 2024

On June 9th, 2024, TextWall briefly shut down following instances of soyjak.party members flocking to it. Several worlds were created with most being filled with braille pastes and the usual Soyjak markings. The site was restored on June 13th with "Welcome to textwall"; "Sorry for the downtime" written in the center. Additional features included an Explore tab in the settings panel which lets users search for publicly listed worlds under a given username, and the lack of ability to see the total number of users site-wide.