Re: [PATCH] add--interactive: allow diff colors without interactive colors

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 5, 2008, 09:28 UTC
Message-ID: <7v3atcd3k6.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20080105085113.GA30598@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> But he doesn't have to care about that. He cares only that "color.diff"
> means "diffs are displayed in color." And "color.interactive" means
> "interactive menus are displayed in color."
> ...
>> If he told "git add -p" to be monochrome, he has every right to expect
>> the part to pick hunks to also stay monochrome.  To people who know
>
> But he didn't. He said "git menus should be monochrome."

Who said anything about "interactive is limited to interactive menus" anywhere? That is where we differ and what you do not seem to be getting. I am talking about color.interactive that controls the whole user experience of interacting with "add -i".

> Moreover, this doesn't allow "I always want color in diffs,
> but I don't want menu coloring" which is the very thing I have
> been trying to accomplish (but yes, I can do that by
> individually setting color.interactive.* to plain).

As you said earlier you may also be minority, but yes the color pallette would help you do that.

> I fail to see how this is less confusing than just adding a separate
> interactive-diff knob, since you are asking them to individually set
> each color preference to plain.

What I am aiming at in longer term is to simplify things this way:

 * Users are categorized broadly into two groups.  The ones who
   like colours and the ones who don't want colours at all.
   color.git would control this (with backward compatibility
   options per command such as color.diff and
   color.interactive);

 * Minorities who want to disable colours for particular parts
   of the UI have enough knobs to tweak in the form of palettes.
   By definition this needs to address "particular parts", so
   "color.$command.$context" variables (e.g. color.diff.new,
   color.interactive.new; if somebody really really wants to
   have different settings between diff/show/log, that person
   could add color.{show,log}.new as well) are needed if we want
   to do this.

Show 7 quoted lines

> E.g., given
> config options:
> ...
>> Admittedly, it's more work.
>
> Of course. ;) But I am willing to implement what I said above if you
> agree that it is sensible.

I think we share the ultimate goal of introducing higher level knobs and our difference is just about minor details of how to get there and what the intermediate levels look like.

I am trying to avoid introducing new intermediate level knobs (e.g. color.log vs color.diff), as it is enough to disable or in general change the way particular parts of the UI is coloured by palette setting that specifically states which part of the UI is tweaked (e.g. color.interactive.prompt).