Re: [Attn - repository browser authors] diff-tree combined format.

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Feb 3, 2006, 21:35 UTC
Message-ID: <7v1wykceic.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <e5bfff550602030417w290c12b6yc4406f890acadc73@mail.gmail.com>

Marco Costalba <mcostalba@gmail.com> writes:

> Regarding the rest is all OK for me. I choose to do not alter/coloring
> the patch as gitk does, but to always use red for removed lines and
> green for added and to keep the patch output _as is_ . I found this
> more simple and clear, at least for me.

This reminds me of one thing. One thing I did not like about the colouring of gitk on an Octopus was that it repeats the same parents in different colors, wasting lines. From diff-tree -c output, one thing coloured diff browsers _could_ do is to let the user pick one parent and paint the lines to make the differences from that parent alone stand out.

For example, If I had this, and I wanted to focus on the difference from the first parent:

        diff --cc foo
        index 92cfee4,50392ff..e9bf860
        @@@ -55,A -55,B +55,C @@@
          # Define USE_STDEV below if you want git to care...
          # change being considered an inode change from t...

        - GIT_VERSION = 0.99.9n
         -GIT_VERSION = 0.99.9.GIT
        ++GIT_VERSION = 1.0.0
         +# This line was already in the first parent
        + # Not in the first parent but in the second already

          # CFLAGS and LDFLAGS are for the users to overri...

You could paint ' ' (unchanged from both) and ' +' (unchanged from first parent) lines the same way (say white background with black letters), '- ' (first parent had it but it is gone) lines red and '+ ' and '++' (either way, first parent did not have it) lines green. And ' -' (disappeared from second parent, but neither first parent nor the result has it) can even be dimmed (say white background with gray letters).