diff-so-fancy
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so-fancy
Re-enable less termcap initialization
This commit removes usage of the the -X option from diff-so-fancy, which prevented less termcap initialization. From the manpage:
-X or --no-init Disables sending the termcap initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. This is sometimes desirable if the deinitialization string does something unnecessary, like clearing the screen.
The default behavior of less is to signal termcap initialization. This behavior provides a number of nice features, including that the output disappears when less is closed, and that mouse scrolling of the less viewport works automatically on terminals such as gnome-terminal.
I believe that this is a sensible default, and it ensures that diff-so-fancy works out of the box with fetaures users have come to expect of less.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. -RFX has been the recommendation for several years now, and it hasn't caused any problems (bug reports). I've used it on my own d-s-f install and haven't had an issue.
If it works for you that's great. I'm just not sure I'm ready to change the defaults/documentation unless we have a specific problem we're trying to solve.
FWIW, it has come up before: #26, #76, #246.
As I understand it the behaviour's entirely terminal dependent anyway? In mine (alacritty) it makes no difference to clearing or scrolling (nor anything else I can immediately notice) whether I use -X or not.
Personally I'd lean toward saying/setting nothing more than | less (or | ${PAGER:-less}!), any options you need/want on your system are up to you; maybe you've already set $LESS, etc.
Just so it's written down here are the appropriate sections of the less man page.
-R or --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS
Like -r, but only ANSI "color" escape sequences and OSC 8 hyperlink se‐
quences are output in "raw" form. Unlike -r, the screen appearance is
maintained correctly, provided that there are no escape sequences in the
file other than these types of escape sequences. Color escape sequences
are only supported when the color is changed within one line, not across
lines. In other words, the beginning of each line is assumed to be nor‐
mal (non-colored), regardless of any escape sequences in previous lines.
For the purpose of keeping track of screen appearance, these escape se‐
quences are assumed to not move the cursor.
-F or --quit-if-one-screen
Causes less to automatically exit if the entire file can be displayed on
the first screen.
-X or --no-init
Disables sending the termcap initialization and deinitialization strings
to the terminal. This is sometimes desirable if the deinitialization
string does something unnecessary, like clearing the screen.
At minimum I think -R is required. -F is a nicety, and depending on your terminal -X may not be required.
Did we come to a conclusion on this? I'm of the mindset, if it ain't broke don't fix it. If we want to document this behavior I'm fine with that, but I don't know if we need to change defaults.
FWIW, it has come up before: #26, #76, #246.
As I understand it the behaviour's entirely terminal dependent anyway? In mine (alacritty) it makes no difference to clearing or scrolling (nor anything else I can immediately notice) whether I use
-Xor not.Personally I'd lean toward saying/setting nothing more than
| less(or| ${PAGER:-less}!), any options you need/want on your system are up to you; maybe you've already set$LESS, etc.
@OJFord That's what I do.
I have this in my ~/.gitconfig:
[core]
# https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy#with-git says to use less with the -RFX flags
# but that prevents the diff to be mouse/trackpad scrollable. I simply use lees here
# because I already use less with the -RF flags by default. See ~/.zshrc.
# See https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy/pull/425
pager = diff-so-fancy | less --tabs=4
And this in my ~/.zshrc:
# Unlike more, if the file content fits the screen, less will still display the prompt.
# To override this behaviour, specify the -F option. This causes less to automatically
# exit if the entire file can be displayed on the first screen.
export LESS="$LESS -RF"
Did we come to a conclusion on this? I'm of the mindset, if it ain't broke don't fix it. If we want to document this behavior I'm fine with that, but I don't know if we need to change defaults.
@scottchiefbaker Maybe this can be left as is, and documented? Even just something simple like linking to this PR or the issues mentioned above would suffice.
@AlanGabbianelli I think a documentation update is the best solution for this. Where do you think we should put it? Do you want to write something up in a PR? I like the idea of just linking to this PR as "documentation"