gitk: tweak rendering of remote-tracking references

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

I understand that the colors of pixels on computer screens is an even more emotional topic that that of bikesheds, so I implemented the last change as a separate commit, the last one in the series. Feel free to drop it if you don't want the default color change.

From: "Michael Haggerty" <[email protected]>

Quoted 3 lines

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

[...]

Quoted 5 lines

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

Quoted 8 lines

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

I understand that the colors of pixels on computer screens is an even more emotional topic that that of bikesheds, so I implemented the last change as a separate commit, the last one in the series. Feel free to drop it if you don't want the default color change.

Just to say that there was an issue with the bright green (lime) a while back when 'green' changed its colour.

dscho reported in
(https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/300#issuecomment-133702654
26 Aug 2015)

"[T]his is a change in Tk 8.6 described here (http://wiki.tcl.tk/1424):
From
Tcl/Tk 8.6 on, Tk uses Web colours instead of X11 ones, where they conflict."

In particular the old bright green version of 'green' became a darker green,
with the old colour becoming named lime.

For me, I needed to change my colour scheme (to a lime) as I could not read the refs against the darker colour.

Anyway, that's the background as I know it.

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

* Omit the "remote/" prefix on normal remote-tracking references. They

are already distinguished via their two-tone rendering and (usually) longer names, and this change saves a lot of visual clutter and horizontal space.

* Render remote-tracking references that have more than the usual three slashes like

      origin/foo/bar
      ^^^^^^^

rather than

origin/foo/bar (formerly remotes/origin/foo/bar)
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

, where the indicated part is the prefix that is rendered in a different color. Usually, such a reference represents a remote branch that contains a slash in its name, so the new split more accurately portrays the separation between remote name and remote branch name.

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

I understand that the colors of pixels on computer screens is an even more emotional topic that that of bikesheds, so I implemented the last change as a separate commit, the last one in the series. Feel free to drop it if you don't want the default color change.

Along the way, I did a bunch of refactoring in the area to make these changes easier, and introduced a constant for the background color of "other" references so that it can also be adjusted by users.

(Unfortunately, these colors can only be adjusted by editing the configuration file. Someday it would be nice to allow them to be configured via the preferences dialog.)

It's been a while since I've written any Tcl code, so I apologize in advance for any howlers :-)

This branch applies against the master branch in
git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/gitk.

Michael

Michael Haggerty (13):
gitk: when processing tag labels, don't use marks as scratch space
gitk: keep track of tag types in a separate types array
gitk: use a type "tags" to indicate abbreviated tags
gitk: use a type "mainhead" to indicate the main HEAD branch
gitk: fill in wvals as the tags are first processed
gitk: simplify regexp
gitk: extract a method remotereftext
gitk: only change the color of the "remote" part of remote refs
gitk: shorten labels displayed for modern remote-tracking refs
gitk: use type "remote" for remote-tracking references
gitk: introduce a constant otherrefbgcolor
gitk: add a configuration setting remoterefbgcolor
gitk: change the default colors for remote-tracking references

 gitk | 114 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------
 1 file changed, 76 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-)

Quoted 2 lines · Michael Haggerty

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

Thanks for this! I like the new, compact look very much!

That said, I remember when I was a new git user and I leaned heavily on gitk to understand how references worked. It was particularly illuminating to see the remote references distinctly labeled, and the fact that they were "remotes/origin/foo" gave me an Aha! moment where I came to understand that the refs hierarchy is more flexible than just the conventions coded into git itself. I eventually felt free to create my own, private ref hierarchies.

I am in no way opposed to this series. I just wanted to point out that there was some utility in those labels. It makes me think that it might be worthwhile for gitk to have a "raw-refs" mode, that shows the full "refs/foo/bar/baz" paths of all the heads, tags, and whatever else. It could be a useful teaching tool for git.

Quoted 13 lines · Marc Branchaud

Quoted 2 lines · Michael Haggerty

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

Thanks for this! I like the new, compact look very much!

That said, I remember when I was a new git user and I leaned heavily on gitk to understand how references worked. It was particularly illuminating to see the remote references distinctly labeled, and the fact that they were "remotes/origin/foo" gave me an Aha! moment where I came to understand that the refs hierarchy is more flexible than just the conventions coded into git itself. I eventually felt free to create my own, private ref hierarchies.

Quoted 5 lines

I am in no way opposed to this series. I just wanted to point out that there was some utility in those labels. It makes me think that it might be worthwhile for gitk to have a "raw-refs" mode, that shows the full "refs/foo/bar/baz" paths of all the heads, tags, and whatever else. It could be a useful teaching tool for git.

Do you think we should have a checkbox in the preferences dialog to select whether to display the long form or the short form?

Quoted 2 lines · Michael Haggerty

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

Thanks for this! I like the new, compact look very much!

That said, I remember when I was a new git user and I leaned heavily on gitk to understand how references worked. It was particularly illuminating to see the remote references distinctly labeled, and the fact that they were "remotes/origin/foo" gave me an Aha! moment where I came to understand that the refs hierarchy is more flexible than just the conventions coded into git itself. I eventually felt free to create my own, private ref hierarchies.

I am in no way opposed to this series. I just wanted to point out that there was some utility in those labels. It makes me think that it might be worthwhile for gitk to have a "raw-refs" mode, that shows the full "refs/foo/bar/baz" paths of all the heads, tags, and whatever else. It could be a useful teaching tool for git.

Quoted 1 line

* Omit the "remote/" prefix on normal remote-tracking references. They

If you re-roll, s:remote/:remotes/:.

Quoted 12 lines

are already distinguished via their two-tone rendering and (usually) longer names, and this change saves a lot of visual clutter and horizontal space.

* Render remote-tracking references that have more than the usual three slashes like

      origin/foo/bar
      ^^^^^^^

rather than

Quoted 8 lines

origin/foo/bar (formerly remotes/origin/foo/bar)
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

, where the indicated part is the prefix that is rendered in a different color. Usually, such a reference represents a remote branch that contains a slash in its name, so the new split more accurately portrays the separation between remote name and remote branch name.

*Love* this change! :)

Quoted 8 lines

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

Please don't change the remotebgcolor default.

Also, perhaps the default remoterefbgcolor should be
set remoterefbgcolor $headbgcolor
?

I say this because when I applied the series, without the last patch, I was miffed that the remote/ref colour had changed.

[...]

Quoted 14 lines · Marc Branchaud

Quoted 2 lines · Michael Haggerty

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

Thanks for this! I like the new, compact look very much!

That said, I remember when I was a new git user and I leaned heavily on gitk to understand how references worked. It was particularly illuminating to see the remote references distinctly labeled, and the fact that they were "remotes/origin/foo" gave me an Aha! moment where I came to understand that the refs hierarchy is more flexible than just the conventions coded into git itself. I eventually felt free to create my own, private ref hierarchies.

Quoted 5 lines

I am in no way opposed to this series. I just wanted to point out that there was some utility in those labels. It makes me think that it might be worthwhile for gitk to have a "raw-refs" mode, that shows the full "refs/foo/bar/baz" paths of all the heads, tags, and whatever else. It could be a useful teaching tool for git.

Yes, I understand that the longer names might be useful for beginners, and the full names even more so. However, I think once a user has that "aha!" moment, the space wasted on all the redundant words is a real impediment to gitk's usability. It is common to have a few references on a single commit (especially if you pull from multiple remotes), in which case the summary line is completely invisible (and therefore its context menu is unreachable). I don't like the idea of dumbing down the UI permanently based on what users need at the very beginning of their Git usage.

Would it be possible to use the short names in the UI but to add the full names to a tooltip or to the context menu?

Quoted 3 lines

Quoted 1 line

* Omit the "remote/" prefix on normal remote-tracking references. They

If you re-roll, s:remote/:remotes/:.

Thanks.

Quoted 38 lines

Quoted 12 lines

are already distinguished via their two-tone rendering and (usually) longer names, and this change saves a lot of visual clutter and horizontal space.

* Render remote-tracking references that have more than the usual three slashes like

      origin/foo/bar
      ^^^^^^^

rather than

Quoted 8 lines

origin/foo/bar (formerly remotes/origin/foo/bar)
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

, where the indicated part is the prefix that is rendered in a different color. Usually, such a reference represents a remote branch that contains a slash in its name, so the new split more accurately portrays the separation between remote name and remote branch name.

*Love* this change! :)

Quoted 8 lines

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

Please don't change the remotebgcolor default.

Also, perhaps the default remoterefbgcolor should be
set remoterefbgcolor $headbgcolor
?

Quoted 2 lines

I say this because when I applied the series, without the last patch, I was miffed that the remote/ref colour had changed.

This is a one-time inconvenience that gitk developers will experience. I doubt that users jump backwards and forwards in gitk versions very often.

Quoted 8 lines · Michael Haggerty

Quoted 7 lines · Marc Branchaud

[...]
Please don't change the remotebgcolor default.

Also, perhaps the default remoterefbgcolor should be
set remoterefbgcolor $headbgcolor
?

Quoted 5 lines

Quoted 2 lines

I say this because when I applied the series, without the last patch, I was miffed that the remote/ref colour had changed.

This is a one-time inconvenience that gitk developers will experience. I doubt that users jump backwards and forwards in gitk versions very often.

In what way do you mean it's restricted to gitk developers?

Patch 12 introduces remoterefbgcolor, with a specific default value. Prior to that, the "ref part" of remote refs was rendered with headbgcolor. Users who changed their headbgcolor are used to seeing the "ref part" of remote refs in the same color as their local heads. Applying patch 12 changes the "ref part" color of remote refs, for such users.

All I'm saying is that make the remoterefbgcolor default be $headbgcolor avoids this.

Quoted 9 lines · Marc Branchaud

Quoted 8 lines · Michael Haggerty

Quoted 7 lines · Marc Branchaud

[...]
Please don't change the remotebgcolor default.

Also, perhaps the default remoterefbgcolor should be
set remoterefbgcolor $headbgcolor
?

Quoted 7 lines

Quoted 5 lines

Quoted 2 lines

I say this because when I applied the series, without the last patch, I was miffed that the remote/ref colour had changed.

This is a one-time inconvenience that gitk developers will experience. I doubt that users jump backwards and forwards in gitk versions very often.

In what way do you mean it's restricted to gitk developers?

Maybe I misunderstood your objection.

While developing this, I realized that the very first time your run gitk (i.e., when you don't already have a configuration file), it writes the then-current default colors into your configuration file. If you later switch gitk versions to a version with different default colors, the colors from the first-run version are preserved (unless the names of the variables used to hold the colors are changed).

So if you would run the tip version of my branch first, then the parent of that version, you would continue to see the colors as modified by the final commit. If you then switch to the master version, the remote branch names go back to green (because it goes back to using headbgcolor again), but the remote prefix stays light brown. I thought you were unhappy about some form of this unexpected persistence problem. But this problem will mostly be experienced by gitk developers who jump back and forth between versions.

A normal user probably mostly moves forward through version numbers, and only occasionally. Such a user, jumping from master to the tip of my branch (assuming they haven't customized anything), would see

* local branches stay lime
* remote branch prefixes stay pale orange (they don't change to light brown because the pale orange color from master is stored in their configuration file)
* remote branch names change from lime to brown (because the remoterefbgcolor configuration setting didn't exist before)

Quoted 9 lines

Patch 12 introduces remoterefbgcolor, with a specific default value. Prior to that, the "ref part" of remote refs was rendered with headbgcolor. Users who changed their headbgcolor are used to seeing the "ref part" of remote refs in the same color as their local heads. Applying patch 12 changes the "ref part" color of remote refs, for such users.

All I'm saying is that make the remoterefbgcolor default be $headbgcolor avoids this.

For somebody who thinks that most people will want local and remote-tracking branch names to be rendered in the same color, your suggestion would be an improvement.

But for somebody like me who thinks it is a good idea to render remote-tracking branch names in a different color than local branch names, this is a feature, not a bug. Even a user who explicitly configured headbgcolor to, say, purple, wasn't necessarily expressing a wish to have remote-tracking branch names rendered in purple. Until now they had no choice to set these colors separately!

So even for somebody who configured this setting before, I think that having the remote-tracking branch names change color when the user upgrades to this version is a good thing, because it lets the user know that these two things can now be colored independently. If they don't like the new default brown color, such a user knows where to change it (even to make it agree with headbgcolor if they want that).

But I understand that this is a matter of personal preference. I have but one "vote" :-)

This patch series changes a bunch of details about how remote-tracking references are rendered in the commit list of gitk:

* Omit the "remote/" prefix on normal remote-tracking references. They are already distinguished via their two-tone rendering and (usually) longer names, and this change saves a lot of visual clutter and horizontal space.

* Render remote-tracking references that have more than the usual three slashes like

      origin/foo/bar
      ^^^^^^^

rather than

origin/foo/bar (formerly remotes/origin/foo/bar)
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

, where the indicated part is the prefix that is rendered in a different color. Usually, such a reference represents a remote branch that contains a slash in its name, so the new split more accurately portrays the separation between remote name and remote branch name.

* Introduce a separate constant to specify the background color used for the branch name part of remote-tracking references, to allow it to differ from the color used for local branches (which by default is bright green).

* Change the default background colors for remote-tracking branches to light brown and brown (formerly they were pale orange and bright green).

I understand that the colors of pixels on computer screens is an even more emotional topic that that of bikesheds, so I implemented the last change as a separate commit, the last one in the series. Feel free to drop it if you don't want the default color change.

Along the way, I did a bunch of refactoring in the area to make these changes easier, and introduced a constant for the background color of "other" references so that it can also be adjusted by users.

(Unfortunately, these colors can only be adjusted by editing the configuration file. Someday it would be nice to allow them to be configured via the preferences dialog.)

It's been a while since I've written any Tcl code, so I apologize in advance for any howlers :-)

This branch applies against the master branch in
git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/gitk.

Michael

Michael Haggerty (13):
gitk: when processing tag labels, don't use marks as scratch space
gitk: keep track of tag types in a separate types array
gitk: use a type "tags" to indicate abbreviated tags
gitk: use a type "mainhead" to indicate the main HEAD branch
gitk: fill in wvals as the tags are first processed
gitk: simplify regexp
gitk: extract a method remotereftext
gitk: only change the color of the "remote" part of remote refs
gitk: shorten labels displayed for modern remote-tracking refs
gitk: use type "remote" for remote-tracking references
gitk: introduce a constant otherrefbgcolor
gitk: add a configuration setting remoterefbgcolor
gitk: change the default colors for remote-tracking references

 gitk | 114 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------
 1 file changed, 76 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-)