`gbl` should have nice syntax coloring (or optionally use GIT_PAGER or `bat`?)

[cjappl]

Currently if you use gbl you get a rather dull monochrome blame:

It would be nice if we could put this through a nicer pager, or add syntax highlighting somehow.

[ccoVeille]

isn't it already possible ?

FORGIT_BLAME_PAGER='bat --color=always -l log' git forgit blame

FORGIT_BLAME_PAGER='bat --color=always -l gitlog' git forgit blame

[sandr01d]

isn't it already possible ?

FORGIT_BLAME_PAGER='bat --color=always -l log' git forgit blame

@ccoVeille this would color everything using the same syntax (log), but ideally we would have syntax highlighting based on the file.

bat (which we already use for gbl) supports syntax highlighting based on the file extension. We currently do not pass the file name to bat and only pipe the content of the file when using gbl. We could use the --file-name parameter to make bat use the correct syntax. I did a quick and dirty implementation to see what the results would look like. Some files look fine, e.g.

For others, the annotations get colored, since bat isn't aware of them.

This is especially bad when using --color-by-age or --color-lines since it makes the highlights in the annotations less visible IMO:

Would be interested what others think, but I personally would value visible highlights from --color-lines more than syntax highlighting in the context of git blame. delta has special highlighting for git blame. This can already be used when configuring delta as pager.

[ccoVeille]

Thanks for your reply. It's clearer.

I like the implementation you made

[carlfriedrich]

@sandr01d I would also value the --color-lines more than syntax highlighting of the file.

However, if delta supports git blame highlighting (which is cool, wasn't aware of that!), then we have a solution, don't we? We could add delta as a soft dependency, just like we do with bat. How about that?

Personally, I am using diff-so-fancy as a pager because I like its diff presentation more than delta's. That's personal preference, though, and I would actually like using delta for gbl if it does something useful there.

[sandr01d]

I agree with you @carlfriedrich. The AUR package already has delta as an optional dependency and we also list it on our README. The only thing to look out for with delta and blame is https://github.com/dandavison/delta/issues/1278, but this can be worked around with FORGIT_BLAME_GIT_OPTS="--date=iso8601" for now.

[ccoVeille]

@carlfriedrich it's indeed a good solution.

Also, you could mention delta as a recommended dependency. And the code react to delta availability.

But it might be what you were thinking about

[sandr01d]

Also, you could mention delta as a recommended dependency

We already mention it as an optional dependency on the README here and it's set as an optional dependency in the AUR package as well.

And the code react to delta availability.

We automatically use delta when it's set as the respective pager in the git config (or set in the FORGIT_BLAME_PAGER environment variable). I don't see the need to add extra code here, since this can easily be configured. Let me know if any of you have a different opinion on this, otherwise I'm going to close this issue sometime soon.