# call external editor from git-gui? 7 messages from 2007-08-10 to 2007-08-16. Participants: Karl Hasselström, Shawn O. Pearce, Jan Hudec, Uwe Kleine-König, David Kastrup, Mike Ralphson. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/9473 ## Karl Hasselström, 2007-08-10 15:30 Subject: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <20070810153008.GA31759@diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070810153008.GA31759%40diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk ``` git-gui is very good at composing commits. But for writing the actual commit message -- especially if it's long and needs paragraph reflowing, indentation, and so on -- I vastly prefer emacs over git-gui's text field. It seems to me like it would be straightforward to have a button or something to launch the user's favorite editor for editing of the commit message -- after all, git even knows what editor that is! Unfortunately, with my tcl expertise, this is likely a whole-weekend project, so I probably won't try to build it myself in the near future. -- Karl Hasselström, kha@treskal.com www.treskal.com/kalle ``` ## Shawn O. Pearce, 2007-08-14 04:55 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <20070814045511.GF27913@spearce.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070814045511.GF27913%40spearce.org In-Reply-To: <20070810153008.GA31759@diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk> ``` Karl Hasselstrm wrote: > git-gui is very good at composing commits. But for writing the actual > commit message -- especially if it's long and needs paragraph > reflowing, indentation, and so on -- I vastly prefer emacs over > git-gui's text field. Yea, I've been thinking about adding fancy features like those. But been lazy. Spawning the user's preferred editor would be a nice way to get some of that. > It seems to me like it would be straightforward to have a button or > something to launch the user's favorite editor for editing of the > commit message -- after all, git even knows what editor that is! Probably. git-gui already has the data from .git/config loaded in memory, it should be fairly simple. > Unfortunately, with my tcl expertise, this is likely a whole-weekend > project, so I probably won't try to build it myself in the near > future. With my busy schedule its unlikely to happen anytime soon either. But I've added it to my todo branch. Sometimes things on that list get accomplished. ;-) An annoying work-around would be to run your editor to create/edit .git/GITGUI_MSG (or .git/MERGE_MSG) then hit Rescan in git-gui. It loads that file into its editor buffer if the editor buffer is empty or has not been modified from within git-gui since the last time the file was read. -- Shawn. ``` ## Karl Hasselström, 2007-08-14 07:00 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <20070814070000.GA12052@diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070814070000.GA12052%40diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk In-Reply-To: <20070814045511.GF27913@spearce.org> ``` On 2007-08-14 00:55:11 -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote: > Karl Hasselstrm wrote: > > > git-gui is very good at composing commits. But for writing the > > actual commit message -- especially if it's long and needs > > paragraph reflowing, indentation, and so on -- I vastly prefer > > emacs over git-gui's text field. > > Yea, I've been thinking about adding fancy features like those. But > been lazy. Yeah, every time I read the git list, I think to myself, "Wow, Shawn sure is lazy!" :-) You do a lot of seriously useful work on git. > Spawning the user's preferred editor would be a nice way to get some > of that. Mmm. I wouldn't call it a _nice_ way: popping up an external program just to get the right text editing behavior. More like the _only_ way, if the user is picky enough. > An annoying work-around would be to run your editor to create/edit > .git/GITGUI_MSG (or .git/MERGE_MSG) then hit Rescan in git-gui. It > loads that file into its editor buffer if the editor buffer is empty > or has not been modified from within git-gui since the last time the > file was read. I just tend to git-commit --amend to accomplish that. -- Karl Hasselström, kha@treskal.com www.treskal.com/kalle ``` ## Jan Hudec, 2007-08-15 18:22 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <20070815182228.GA3419@efreet.light.src> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070815182228.GA3419%40efreet.light.src In-Reply-To: <20070814070000.GA12052@diana.vm.bytemark.co.uk> ``` On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:00:00 +0200, Karl Hasselström wrote: > On 2007-08-14 00:55:11 -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote: > > Spawning the user's preferred editor would be a nice way to get some > > of that. > > Mmm. I wouldn't call it a _nice_ way: popping up an external program > just to get the right text editing behavior. More like the _only_ way, > if the user is picky enough. It might actually have a rather serious twist. Often the editor for git-commit would use the terminal git-commit runs on. But for git-gui you may not have any terminal (running git-gui from context menu of some file manager) and even if you do, the user does not expect it to be used. So the user may -- and quite often will -- want different editors for running from git-gui and git-commit. -- Jan 'Bulb' Hudec ``` ## Uwe Kleine-König, 2007-08-15 18:31 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <20070815183149.GD1644@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20070815183149.GD1644%40informatik.uni-freiburg.de In-Reply-To: <20070815182228.GA3419@efreet.light.src> ``` Hello, Jan Hudec wrote: > On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:00:00 +0200, Karl Hasselström wrote: > > On 2007-08-14 00:55:11 -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote: > > > Spawning the user's preferred editor would be a nice way to get some > > > of that. > > > > Mmm. I wouldn't call it a _nice_ way: popping up an external program > > just to get the right text editing behavior. More like the _only_ way, > > if the user is picky enough. > > It might actually have a rather serious twist. Often the editor for > git-commit would use the terminal git-commit runs on. But for git-gui you may > not have any terminal (running git-gui from context menu of some file > manager) and even if you do, the user does not expect it to be used. So the > user may -- and quite often will -- want different editors for running from > git-gui and git-commit. Alternatively you need to find out/let the user specify if her editor needs a terminal and then use xterm -e myfavoriteeditor or simply myfavoriteeditor depending on the result. Best regards Uwe -- Uwe Kleine-König $ dc -e "5735816763073014741799356604682P" ``` ## David Kastrup, 2007-08-15 18:38 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: <86ir7g4p92.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/86ir7g4p92.fsf%40lola.quinscape.zz In-Reply-To: <20070815182228.GA3419@efreet.light.src> ``` Jan Hudec writes: > On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:00:00 +0200, Karl Hasselström wrote: >> On 2007-08-14 00:55:11 -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote: >> > Spawning the user's preferred editor would be a nice way to get some >> > of that. >> >> Mmm. I wouldn't call it a _nice_ way: popping up an external program >> just to get the right text editing behavior. More like the _only_ way, >> if the user is picky enough. > > It might actually have a rather serious twist. Often the editor for > git-commit would use the terminal git-commit runs on. But for git-gui you may > not have any terminal (running git-gui from context menu of some file > manager) and even if you do, the user does not expect it to be used. So the > user may -- and quite often will -- want different editors for running from > git-gui and git-commit. The usual convention (though _very_ hard to find anywhere explicitly, so it might more often than not be ignored) is that $VISUAL points to an editor that requires a tty to work on, while $EDITOR might get along without one. So one uses VISUAL in preference of EDITOR on ttys/proper terminals, but only EDITOR when without one. A call from git-gui would probably fall in the second category. A call from tig, in contrast, in the first category. The GIT_EDITOR variable has no way of expressing this difference, though. And I doubt that many people remember this. I googled around but failed to come up with a useful reference (of course, both variable names being common words does not exactly help). -- David Kastrup ``` ## Mike Ralphson, 2007-08-16 07:59 Subject: Re: call external editor from git-gui? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/e2b179460708160059x90b0187g30f50784fbe6ac87%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <86ir7g4p92.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> ``` It seems quite common to have a trio of environment variables: $EDITOR, $VISUAL and $XEDITOR, for line, tty-aware and graphical editors respectively. [http://xdvi.sourceforge.net/inverse-search-emacs-noauctex.html] [http://lists.osuosl.org/pipermail/darcs-users/2006-December/010783.html] Whether git needs to have a trio of overrides for them is a different matter, or could just recommend that git be aliased or wrapped if the editors needed for git are different to normal. Cheers, Mike On 8/15/07, David Kastrup wrote: > The usual convention (though _very_ hard to find anywhere explicitly, > so it might more often than not be ignored) is that $VISUAL points to > an editor that requires a tty to work on, while $EDITOR might get > along without one. > > So one uses VISUAL in preference of EDITOR on ttys/proper terminals, > but only EDITOR when without one. A call from git-gui would probably > fall in the second category. A call from tig, in contrast, in the > first category. > > The GIT_EDITOR variable has no way of expressing this difference, > though. And I doubt that many people remember this. I googled around > but failed to come up with a useful reference (of course, both > variable names being common words does not exactly help). ```