Re: [Suggestion] Alternative way for displaying help menu of patch flow

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Apr 28, 2017, 06:37 UTC
Message-ID: <20170428063723.2ni2v6akosm4ldvy@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <b55bd985-be6a-7fd6-1744-7ffb9d8b4ce8@gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 10:44:22AM +0530, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> I guess it would be better to display the help menu in a separate flow, like
> when the user click the `?` option in the `patch` flow then the whole screen
> is cleared and the help menu is displayed in some appropriate place and
> after the user has viewed the help menu he could quit from the help screen
> (probably by using a key like `q`) to continue where he left off. I think it
> would be better because, in general, a user would want to see the help menu
> when he uses the `?` option in the patch flow, not the hunk that gets
> displayed after it.

I think it would be nicer to avoid modality in the interface. I.e., rather than having "?" switch you into "help mode", stay at the same hunk prompt but just don't show the hunk again automatically. In most cases it will still be visible on the screen anyway, and there probably ought to be a "r"edisplay command if the user wants to see it from scratch.

Something like the patch at the end of this message.

I think this problem does extend to other output we show in the patch loop. For instance, if you hit 'j' and there is no, you get:

  $ git add -p
  diff --git a/foo b/foo
  index 3367afd..3e75765 100644
  --- a/foo
  +++ b/foo
  @@ -1 +1 @@
  -old
  +new
  Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,e,?]? j
  No next hunk
  @@ -1 +1 @@
  -old
  +new
  Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,e,?]?

If the hunk is big, that message scrolls off the screen. We could probably put it after the hunk, but I'd worry that the ordering would be confusing (because it comes between the hunk and the "this hunk" prompt.

Or it could just not re-display the hunk all (like what my patch does for help), and you'd get:

  @@ -1 +1 @@
  -old
  +new
  Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,e,?]? j
  No next hunk
  Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,/,e,?]?

at which point you could "r" to redisplay it if you wanted to.

I also suspect that other menus in add--interactive have the same issue. E.g., if you have a large number of files what does the file-selection menu "git add -i" look like? Perhaps the issue is less common there, though.

---

diff --git a/git-add--interactive.perl b/git-add--interactive.perl
index 709a5f6ce..81f62331b 100755
--- a/git-add--interactive.perl
+++ b/git-add--interactive.perl
@@ -1237,6 +1237,7 @@ k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
 K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
 s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
 e - manually edit the current hunk
+r - redisplay the current hunk
 ? - print help
 EOF
 }
@@ -1385,6 +1386,7 @@ my %patch_update_prompt_modes = (
 sub patch_update_file {
 	my $quit = 0;
 	my ($ix, $num);
+	my $skip_hunk_display;
 	my $path = shift;
 	my ($head, @hunk) = parse_diff($path);
 	($head, my $mode, my $deletion) = parse_diff_header($head);
@@ -1451,8 +1453,13 @@ sub patch_update_file {
 		if ($hunk[$ix]{TYPE} eq 'hunk') {
 			$other .= ',e';
 		}
-		for (@{$hunk[$ix]{DISPLAY}}) {
-			print;
+
+		if ($skip_hunk_display) {
+			$skip_hunk_display = 0;
+		} else {
+			for (@{$hunk[$ix]{DISPLAY}}) {
+				print;
+			}
 		}
 		print colored $prompt_color,
 			sprintf(__($patch_update_prompt_modes{$patch_mode}{$hunk[$ix]{TYPE}}), $other);
@@ -1608,8 +1615,13 @@ sub patch_update_file {
 					splice @hunk, $ix, 1, $newhunk;
 				}
 			}
+			elsif ($line =~ /^r/) {
+				# do nothing; we'll show the hunk when we loop
+				next;
+			}
 			else {
 				help_patch_cmd($other);
+				$skip_hunk_display = 1;
 				next;
 			}
 			# soft increment