Jeff King wrote: > On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 09:08:20PM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > > > > [snip] I think it would be easier to understand to end-users > > > if this were exposed as a new "mode", like "git help --web" and "git > > > help --info" are different modes from the "git help --man", > > > something like "git help --fancy-man" (or whatever is easy to type > > > and explain, and also add it to the variants help.format knows about > > > to make it easy to set the default). > > > > > > One advantage of doing so is that we do not have to worry about "ah, > > > user has LESS_BLAH environment variable so we should disable this > > > new mode here" etc. As long as the new mode is requested either via > > > the command line option or help.format configuration, it can > > > completely take it over. That simplifies the necessary explanation > > > given to the users quite a lot, no? > > > > The interaction between "git help" and "man"/"less" doesn't really have > > an equivalent in the rest of git as far as color output goes. Usually we > > emit colors via our own programs. > > > > But no, I think it makes the most sense to consider this orthagonal to > > help.format=man or man.viewer=<cmd>. > > > > We're not invoking a different man viewer or command, we're just > > expecting that mode to invoke the pager, and if that pager is less to > > have these variables tweak our color preferences. > > FWIW, if we are going to do this, then just having it as "color.man" > makes the most sense to me. It is easily explained as "when we invoke > man, set up some environment variables that may enable colors in the > output". > > I'm still entirely unconvinced that this should be in Git at all; That's OK, you don't need to be convinced for this change to be a positive one. > pointing GIT_MAN_VIEWER or man.*.cmd at a color-man wrapper seems like > it would be sufficient. What color-man wrapper? > But it feels like that conversation was not going anywhere productive; Feelings are not facts. Bailing from a discussion doesn't resolve the discussion, and the question "how is a user supposed to configure this properly?" remains unanswered by you, or anyone [1]. This patch is the closest to a convenient solution anybody has come up with. If anybody has any other proposal it would be good to hear them. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/60bfadc0aca09_1abb8f208fd@natae.notmuch/ -- Felipe Contreras
