Re: [PATCH] doc: explain the use of color.pager

Jonathan Nieder wrote:

More importantly, I think I'd find a reference to the commit or a
quotation from the affected user more helpful than a reference to the
mailing list archive, since that would make this a bit more
self-contained.

And for me it's the opposite; I find what one user found at one point in
time long ago not particularly important. At best it's a footnote.

[...]

quoted

--- a/Documentation/config/color.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config/color.txt

@@ -127,8 +127,9 @@ color.interactive.<slot>::
 	interactive commands.
 
 color.pager::
-	A boolean to enable/disable colored output when the pager is in
-	use (default is true).
+	A boolean to specify whether `auto` color modes should colorize
+	output going to the pager. Defaults to true; set this to false
+	if your pager does not understand ANSI color codes.

I quite like the "set this to false if your pager does not understand
ANSI color codes" part --- short and to the point.

The sentence before takes me long enough to understand that I don't
think we've gotten the wording right yet.  Before I suggest some
wording, let's make sure I understand the behavior correctly:

- unlike other color.* settings, this can only be "true" or "false".
  It cannot be "auto".

- in other color.* settings, "auto" means "colors are used only when
  stderr goes to a terminal".  A pager typically ultimately writes to
  a terminal, but (1) it's not guaranteed to (e.g., xless writes to
  its own window instead) and (2) more importantly for us, it's not
  guaranteed to write terminal escapes as is.

- so this setting can be used to answer "for the sake of evaluating
  color settings, should we treat output that is going to a pager as
  going to a terminal?"

Correct.

If I understood correctly, how about some text like the following?

	A boolean to specify whether `auto` color modes should colorize
	output going to a pager, in addition to their behavior of
	colorizing output going to a terminal.

The "in adittion" part is unnecessary. You don't say "the rest of git's
behavior remains unafffected" on every single configuration. That is
obvious.

We are specifying what happens when output is going to a pager, that's
it.

Everything else--including what happens when the output going to
different programs--it not relevant.

In addition, as far as I can recall there are no commands that send
output both to a pager and to a terminal.

Side note, not about this patch: we treat pager.color as a synonym for
color.pager.  Is that something we want to document, or is that an
instance of being extra friendly when the user makes a typo?

I suspect pager.color is a remnant from an ancient suboptimal name choice.

-- 
Felipe Contreras