threads / discuss / 10215

Adding color to git-add--interactive

Subject: Adding color to git-add--interactive

## tl;dr

8 messages between Oct 9, 2007 and Oct 10, 2007.

replies: 7people: 5as markdown or json

Jonathan del Strother· Oct 9, 2007, 13:06 UTC · lore

I find git-add--interactive incredibly awkward to use, mostly due to the lack of visual differentiation as you type in a sequence of commands. For example, when stepping through hunks to patch, every time it shows a new hunk I have to carefully scan up the screen to find where the hunk starts, before I can actually start reading what's contained in that hunk.

For me at least, adding color would make the interactive mode far more readable. I hacked in basic color support (just coloring PROMPT & HEADER in list_and_choose, and the "Stage this hunk?" prompt) - which helped a lot - but then reached the limits of my perl knowledge. For instance, I can't see a sensible way of reusing git-svn's log_use_color function without importing the entire file, and I can't figure out how you'd go about diff-coloring the hunks. Is anyone with more perl knowledge than me interested in taking this on?

Or am I alone in finding interactive mode basically unreadable? Jon

Wincent Colaiuta· Oct 9, 2007, 13:31 UTC · re: Jonathan del Strother · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

El 9/10/2007, a las 15:06, Jonathan del Strother escribió:
> Or am I alone in finding interactive mode basically unreadable?

I don't think you're alone. Compared with the nice colorized output from things like git-status, git-log, git-diff and friends, the output of "git-add --interactive" is decidedly hard to read.

Cheers, Wincent

Johannes Schindelin· Oct 9, 2007, 14:04 UTC · re: Wincent Colaiuta · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

Hi,
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Wincent Colaiuta wrote:
Show 7 quoted lines
> El 9/10/2007, a las 15:06, Jonathan del Strother escribi?:
> 
> > Or am I alone in finding interactive mode basically unreadable?
> 
> I don't think you're alone. Compared with the nice colorized output from 
> things like git-status, git-log, git-diff and friends, the output of 
> "git-add --interactive" is decidedly hard to read.

And since git-add--interactive is still a script, there is no excuse: providing a patch should take the same time and amount of work as complaining about the lack of colour.

Ciao, Dscho

Wincent Colaiuta· Oct 9, 2007, 14:44 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

El 9/10/2007, a las 16:04, Johannes Schindelin escribió:
Show 14 quoted lines
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Wincent Colaiuta wrote:
>
>> El 9/10/2007, a las 15:06, Jonathan del Strother escribió:
>>
>>> Or am I alone in finding interactive mode basically unreadable?
>>
>> I don't think you're alone. Compared with the nice colorized  
>> output from
>> things like git-status, git-log, git-diff and friends, the output of
>> "git-add --interactive" is decidedly hard to read.
>
> And since git-add--interactive is still a script, there is no excuse:
> providing a patch should take the same time and amount of work as
> complaining about the lack of colour.

Why so combative, Johannes? I merely answered one of Jonathan's questions. Nobody has proffered any "excuses".

And in any case, you're exaggerating. Jonathan said that he's already invested time in trying to get it working, most certainly more time than it has taken he, you or I, to write the emails in this thread, and he's gotten as far as his Perl knowledge permits him.

Cheers, Wincent

Jeff King· Oct 9, 2007, 23:40 UTC · re: Jonathan del Strother · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 02:06:31PM +0100, Jonathan del Strother wrote:
Show 8 quoted lines
> For me at least, adding color would make the interactive mode far more
> readable.   I hacked in basic color support (just coloring PROMPT &
> HEADER in list_and_choose, and the "Stage this hunk?" prompt) - which
> helped a lot - but then reached the limits of my perl knowledge.  For
> instance, I can't see a sensible way of reusing git-svn's
> log_use_color function without importing the entire file, and I can't
> figure out how you'd go about diff-coloring the hunks.  Is anyone with
> more perl knowledge than me interested in taking this on?
Why don't you post what you have, and we can make comments on it?

As far as reusing code from git-svn, there is a 'Git.pm' module in the perl/ subdirectory. You can move the code there and 'use Git' in git-add--interactive.perl (git-svn already uses it).

-Peff
Johannes Schindelin· Oct 10, 2007, 15:06 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

Hi,
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Jeff King wrote:
Show 16 quoted lines
> On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 02:06:31PM +0100, Jonathan del Strother wrote:
> 
> > For me at least, adding color would make the interactive mode far more
> > readable.   I hacked in basic color support (just coloring PROMPT &
> > HEADER in list_and_choose, and the "Stage this hunk?" prompt) - which
> > helped a lot - but then reached the limits of my perl knowledge.  For
> > instance, I can't see a sensible way of reusing git-svn's
> > log_use_color function without importing the entire file, and I can't
> > figure out how you'd go about diff-coloring the hunks.  Is anyone with
> > more perl knowledge than me interested in taking this on?
> 
> Why don't you post what you have, and we can make comments on it?
> 
> As far as reusing code from git-svn, there is a 'Git.pm' module in the
> perl/ subdirectory. You can move the code there and 'use Git' in
> git-add--interactive.perl (git-svn already uses it).

I think the reason git-add--interactive does not use it is that some people (me included) experienced heavy problems with perl modules. However, I do not recall to which extent they have been solved. I guess when git-add--interactive goes Git.pm and stops working for me, I'll do my famous "aargh, I'll just make it a builtin" song.

Ciao, Dscho

Jeff King· Oct 10, 2007, 17:06 UTC · re: Johannes Schindelin · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 04:06:09PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
Show 5 quoted lines
> I think the reason git-add--interactive does not use it is that some 
> people (me included) experienced heavy problems with perl modules.  
> However, I do not recall to which extent they have been solved.  I guess 
> when git-add--interactive goes Git.pm and stops working for me, I'll do my 
> famous "aargh, I'll just make it a builtin" song.

I had thought this was the case, too (and in fact, I started to write "we don't have a good solution for sharing perl code"), but it looks like git-remote, git-svn, and git-send-email are all using Git.pm these days.

-Peff
Alex Riesen· Oct 10, 2007, 21:09 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: Adding color to git-add--interactive

Jeff King, Wed, Oct 10, 2007 19:06:21 +0200:
Show 13 quoted lines
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 04:06:09PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > I think the reason git-add--interactive does not use it is that some 
> > people (me included) experienced heavy problems with perl modules.  
> > However, I do not recall to which extent they have been solved.  I guess 
> > when git-add--interactive goes Git.pm and stops working for me, I'll do my 
> > famous "aargh, I'll just make it a builtin" song.
> 
> I had thought this was the case, too (and in fact, I started to write
> "we don't have a good solution for sharing perl code"), but it looks
> like git-remote, git-svn, and git-send-email are all using Git.pm these
> days.
>

And strangely enough, git-remote is even usable on cygwin. Can't say for others though.

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