[darcs-users] make `darcs changes` interactive by default?

[Ben Franksen]

I'm a bit late to the party, sorry, just catching up on my backlog.

As one of the people who proposed the change I am of course happy with it. 
However, that doesn't mean too much, since I have been using -i as my 
personal default for a very long time, so for me the change wasn't even 
noticeable.

I can fully understand that some people prefer using a pager, so they can 
view a full screen of changes at a time. Either way, it is just one entry in 
the personal configuration to change the default. I did not propose this 
change with experienced users in mind -- I mean users experienced enough 
with a command line that they know how to effectively use a pager. I have 
been thinking of the many very inexperienced users where I work: they are 
used to Windows and quite illiterate with command line tools. I am happy if 
I get one of them to even use 'darcs changes' at all. Explaining to them 
that they have to add an extra '...|less' after the command (and why) is an 
unnecessary distraction and just something more for them to remember.

Cheers
Ben

Gian Piero Carrubba wrote:
> * [Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 11:10:23AM -0700] Simon Michael:
>>>Any thoughts about interactive changes by default?
>>
>>I've been living with it for several months, and I'm not a huge fan.
> 
> Neither I am a huge fan, but I'm getting used and would probably leave 
> it interactive. There are anyway some things that still puzzle me.
> 
> 'log' isn't a real command, so i.e. I cannot type `darcs l`. I've just 
> discovered that `darcs --commands` does not output 'log', so I cannot 
> understand how bash can complete it, but at least bash completion works 
> so that's it. Nevertheless, I would still prefer if `darcs l` worked.
> 
> I'm still not really used to changes being interactive, so I often end 
> up typing `changes -v`. This is annoying, especially when used with a 
> selector (like '--last 1'): displays the patch then asks me if I want to 
> see the patch and waits for an answer (and sometimes I don't 
> see/remember about the prompt and let it waiting just to wonder some 
> time after why I still have a darcs command running). I don't see why it 
> should prompt the user when passed the '-v' option (but it probably 
> should use a pager, see the next point).
> 
> More in general, I don't like how both log and changes display the 
> results. I think it has been discussed previously, but don't know what 
> was the general orientation. IMHO, both commands should feed the output 
> to a pager if STDOUT points to a terminal and the output is longer than 
> the number of lines of the terminal (+/- a number of "courtesy lines") 
> or longer than 20 lines if the terminal's height cannot be determined 
> [0].
> Some examples:
> `darcs log` -> maybePager
> `log=$( darcs log )` -> STDOUT
> `darcs changes` | prompting the user -> STDOUT
>                  | displaying the patch -> maybePager
> `darcs log | less` -> STDOUT (then fed to the pipe by the shell)
> 
> Ciao,
> Gian Piero.
> 
> [0] I think the code is already (almost/all ?) in place and used i.e.  
> when given the '--help' argument.
-- 
Ben Franksen
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