RE: How dow we educate our users to configure less?

["Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>]

On June 28, 2021 3:44 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>Randall S. Becker wrote:
>> On June 28, 2021 3:02 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> >Randall S. Becker wrote:
>> >> On June 28, 2021 2:12 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> >> >Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> >> >> It has been suggested that we "educate our users" to configure
>> >> >> less in the right way, instead of colorizing man pages ourselves [1].
>> >> >>
>> >> >> The question is *how*? Nobody has answered that.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> This is a continuation of the thread below.
>> >> >
>> >> >> I am still waiting for an explanation.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> How does the user properly colorize man pages for both man and
>> >> >> git in a way that works in all distributions?
>> >> >
>> >> >No response.
>> >>
>> >> I think you're looking for something does not exist because it is
>> >> platform and environment dependent.
>> >
>> >Yes, but there's always some common denominator.
>> >
>> >> There are two ways to configure git to work with 'less' on NonStop
>> >> and neither is identical to Ubuntu or Windows.
>> >
>> >But I'm not talking about configuring git to work with less.
>> >
>> >Once you have less configured, how do you add colors? For example how do you turn bold into red bold?
>> >
>> >> Don't even get me started on what less does in a TSO/ISPF
>> >> environment where everything is some single colour on black unless
>> >> your emulator supports 3279 emulation.
>> >
>> >Is it even possible to add color there? I'm talking about platforms where color is possible in the first place.
>> >
>> >> >It's safe to say at this point that nobody knows what that configuration would look like.
>> >>
>> >> Nobody, perhaps, knows how to do this on every platform in the
>> >> known universe 😊. There is no "one way" to do this consistently everywhere.
>> >
>> >In the platforms where color is supported, and you have less, what does this do?
>> >
>> >  LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\e[1;31m' LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\e[m' git help git
>>
>> This only works in bash/shell. So if you are not initiating from a shell, you cannot use this technique.
>
>I know. The technique is not the point. You can use whatever technique you want to get LESS_TERMCAP_md and LESS_TERMCAP_me set
>on the environment before launching `git help git` in whatever way you want.
>
>Now, clearly that technique would vary platform by platform, which is precisely why I'm proposing to do it inside `git help` itself [1].
>
>Clearly this would work on every platform that has less and color and it's technique-independent:
>
>  setenv("LESS_TERMCAP_md", GIT_COLOR_BOLD_RED, 0);
>  setenv("LESS_TERMCAP_me", GIT_COLOR_RESET, 0);
>
>Would it not?

Less is obviously used across the board (git log, git help, etc.). The assumption of the same starting point for all situations is not valid. For example: my own environment runs git from the following starting points (in order of frequency):
1. Cygwin (bash, yay, easy).
2. OSS (Posix-like, bash, easy).
3. Jenkins (dumb terminal, no colours or else the output gets messed up).
4. GUARDIAN (Not at all Posix-like, I have to supply my own environment variables and the terminal emulator is not vt220 compatible).
5. USS (Posix-like, bash, easy).
6. TSO/ISPF (Not at all Posix-like, I have to supply my own environment variables and the terminal emulator is not vt220 compatible).

In the case of 2-4, this all happens on the same system. Same with 3,5,6. So I have to maintain multiple "less" profiles to maintain output sanity. I cannot do this using .bashrc or .profile because those do not apply. If I had to suffer a single definition set within git, I would lose my mind.

Admittedly, I am in a highly complex situation, but it is a real one (ok, two because of a diverged path between NonStop and MVS) and there are hundreds in a similar situation.

-Randall