Warn/Success/Info/Error functions

[tomjn]

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Currently Tart uses print to output its messages, but if there were dedicated wrapper functions then it could standardise error/warning outputs and colour code them

Noting this as a nice to have.

It can be done manually via escape codes in print according to this Stack Overflow answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/27808423/57482

I also expect there's an equivalent to the Chalk JS library written in Swift, I couldn't see one with a quick search that wasn't a full CLI framework though

This likely means a future ticket for a --no-color or --no-colors option

[tomjn]

Spoke too soon, here's examples with named colours using a swift package named chalk:

https://iosexample.com/terminal-colors-using-swift-5s-string-interpolation-extensions/

$ swift sh <<EOF
import Foundation
import Chalk  // @mxcl ~> 0.3

for x in 0..<256 {
    let cell = " \(x)".padding(toLength: 5, withPad: " ", startingAt: 0)
    let terminator = (x + 3).isMultiple(of: 6) ? "\n" : ""
    print("\(cell, color: .extended(15), background: .extended(UInt8(x)))", terminator: terminator)
}
EOF

https://github.com/mxcl/Chalk it looks pretty small as far as libraries go so perhaps it's overkill

[edigaryev]

What problem the colors are going to solve?

Colors normally allow you to discern different bits of information quickly, but Tart's output is not that complicated at this moment.

[tomjn]

Standardisation or error/warning messages, and beauty, this is a nice to have

[edigaryev]

Standardisation or error/warning messages

Do you have log-like output like WARNING: failed to do something in mind?

and beauty, this is a nice to have

Beauty is a pretty subjective thing 😅 There's beauty in simplicity, sometimes to the point of not emitting any output at all, see Unix philosophy.

[tomjn]

True but Tart already flounces most of that philosophy by having subcommands and asking for user input. Colour and consistent presentation is a UI/UX feature with usability and accessibility consequences. Otherwise we'd need separate binaries for every subcommand with flags for every possible input/confirmation

[fkorotkov]

I don't think it's worth adding ASCII output for color. Tart doesn't output that much information. I think the current behaviour of using stdout for regular output and stderr for errors is good enough.

Since there were no other requests to improve the output I think we can close the issue until there is more demand and a cleaner visions for benefits.