Re: [PATCHv2] builtin/blame: highlight interesting things

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

> When using git-blame lots of lines contain redundant information, for
> example in hunks that consist of multiple lines, the metadata (commit name,
> author) are repeated. A reader may not be interested in those, so darken
> (commit, author) information that is the same as in the previous line.
>
> Choose a different approach for dates and imitate a 'temperature cool down'
> for the dates. Compute the time range of all involved blamed commits
> and then color
>  * lines of old commits dark (aged 0-50% in that time range)
>  * lines of medium age normal (50-80%)
>  * lines of new age red (80-95%)
>  * lines just introduced bright yellow (95-100%)
>
> Signed-off-by: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>
> ---
>
>   I played around with it a bit more, using a different color scheme
>   for dates, http://i.imgur.com/redhaLi.png

I do agree with what this one tries to do, in that a block of lines
tend to share the same metainfo as they come from the same commit
and it is distracting to see them repeatedly---doing something to
make their "these are in one group" nature stand out will give us a
much better presentation.

But does this particular implementation work well for people who use
black in on white background?  "Darken to make it less distracting"
may not work on both white-on-black and black-on-white users.

"Show the background only by replacing the letters with SP for
metainfo that are same as previous line" would work for folks from
either camp, I would imagine.  And that should be a single feature,
that can be enabled independently from the age based coloring.

The age coloring is much harder to make it work for folks from both
camps at the same time with the same color selection.  Yellow on
white would be terribly unreadable for black-on-white folks, for
example.

If you make "make it less distracting by blanking them out (not
'darken them')" feature without the age coloring, that can be usable
immediately by folks from both camps, even if you cannot find a way
to do the age coloring that would satisfy both groups.  One group
can just leave the knob off and not use the age coloring, while the
other group can use it and people from both camps will be happier
than the status quo.

Thanks.