Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Gennady Kovshenin]

This is a follow-up to:

https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/pull/117#issuecomment-55868722

> With the high availability of wide screens and high-resolution emulated
> terminals and terminal window managers it's sometimes useful to change
> the output of cal(1) yearly views to more stretched out ones
> horizontally.
>
> This patch adds a new -l/--landscape flag that stretches out the yearly
> view to 3x4 and 4x3 months in Julian mode and 4x3 and 6x2 in regular
> mode. The flag can be used up to two times.


Thank you for your response, Karel :)

"It would be better to make it completely dynamical and fill-in all
terminal horizontally if possible. It means to determine the number of
the months dynamically according to terminal width rather than
hardcode number of months (or require more -l options
(ctl.landscape++))."

I don't think the filling in the terminal completely is a logical
approach. I feel that calendar year output has to be rectangular. T
here are always 12 months and the only way to arrange them into a
nice rectangular shape is 1x12, 2x6, 3x4, 4x3, 6x2, 12x1, other shapes
don't make much sense UI-wise, do they? All the printed mini calendars
I get are always laid out in 3x4, 4x3 or 6x2 (rare).

This is what actually inspired me to hack cal in the first place.
Someone asked me to put together a simple mini calendar from print, it
had to be in landscape mode (4x3 months). cal would only output 3x4 so
I couldn't just copy and paste into GIMP. I couldn't even find a tool
online that would output nice text to paste in. Ended up downloading
the source and hacking a quick 4x3 mode for a once-off purpose,
writing down "cal landscape mode" in my todo list.

I did pick the most useful extensions of 4x3 and 6x2 for regular, and 3x4 and
4x3 for the Julian one. I have a 1080p monitor and 6x2 is the largest
it goes without wrapping on a 12pt mono font for a regular calendar
(Julian is a bit wider even so 6x2 barely fits).

If 12x1 is really useful (i.e. full length with month wrapping) adding
another -l to extend would work. But not having the flexibility of
wrapping to predefined sizes seems like a missing feature. I mean we
could resize the terminal window and wrap along the edges, but that's
not good UI. Forcing the user to resize the terminal window to get
perfect rectangular layouts seems like a hack.

I did pick the repetition of the flag to stretch out the layout akin
to the way verbose flags work in many programs, by repeating -vvvv one
gets more verbosity out of the program. And by repeating -lll one gets
more lanscape out of cal.

Hope this makes sense. I appreciate your feedback and hope to sort
this feature out with more input and brainstorming.

Regards,
Gennady Kovshenin

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Karel Zak <notifications@github.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Gennady,
> don't care about po/ stuff, it's automatically updated before release.
>
> The request to make cal(1) more friendly to large screens makes sense, but your -l implementation does not seem to be user-friendly.
>
> It would be better to make it completely dynamical and fill-in all terminal horizontally if possible. It means to determine the number of the months dynamically according to terminal width rather than hardcode number
> of months (or require more -l options (ctl.landscape++)).
>
> See lib/ttyutils.c and get_terminal_width().
>
> Note the best way to discuss new features is util-linux@vger.kernel.org mailing
> list. You don't have to subscribe to send to the list.
>
> —
> Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Karel Zak]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 06:22:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
> I don't think the filling in the terminal completely is a logical
> approach. I feel that calendar year output has to be rectangular. T
> here are always 12 months and the only way to arrange them into a
> nice rectangular shape is 1x12, 2x6, 3x4, 4x3, 6x2, 12x1, other shapes
> don't make much sense UI-wise, do they? All the printed mini calendars
> I get are always laid out in 3x4, 4x3 or 6x2 (rare).

 Well, "fill-in all terminal horizontally" does not mean that I want to
 generate any unreadable mess :-)

 I'd like to see "cal --landscape" *just works* and it automatically
 selects the best output format (3x4, 4x3, 6x2, ...) which fits into
 the current terminal width. That's all the story. As user I don't
 want to think about number of -l options.

 Additionally we can add a new option --format={3x4, 4x3, auto, ...}
 to provide full control on the output for scripts that generate
 something from cal(1) output.

 IMHO, it's mistake that for example -y or -3 ignores terminal width
 so on small terminals it's unreadable.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Gennady Kovshenin]

I like the format=auto idea. But we can keep it to just the number of
columns instead of a full CxR format.
i.e. format=2 (2x6), format=3 (3x4), format=4 (4x3), and so on.
perhaps the parameter should be called --columns/-c instead of format.
We can either have an additional auto value to the format, or have it
be on by default.
Having auto on by default means breaking compatibility. Some users
might be parsing output expecting the default 3x4 view in place and if
we abruptly change this to be stretched automatically their scripts
might break.

Any thoughts on the above? --format vs. --columns? And the default
value thereof.

Regards,
Gennady Kovshenin
Regards,
Gennady Kovshenin


On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 06:22:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
>> I don't think the filling in the terminal completely is a logical
>> approach. I feel that calendar year output has to be rectangular. T
>> here are always 12 months and the only way to arrange them into a
>> nice rectangular shape is 1x12, 2x6, 3x4, 4x3, 6x2, 12x1, other shapes
>> don't make much sense UI-wise, do they? All the printed mini calendars
>> I get are always laid out in 3x4, 4x3 or 6x2 (rare).
>
>  Well, "fill-in all terminal horizontally" does not mean that I want to
>  generate any unreadable mess :-)
>
>  I'd like to see "cal --landscape" *just works* and it automatically
>  selects the best output format (3x4, 4x3, 6x2, ...) which fits into
>  the current terminal width. That's all the story. As user I don't
>  want to think about number of -l options.
>
>  Additionally we can add a new option --format={3x4, 4x3, auto, ...}
>  to provide full control on the output for scripts that generate
>  something from cal(1) output.
>
>  IMHO, it's mistake that for example -y or -3 ignores terminal width
>  so on small terminals it's unreadable.
>
>     Karel
>
> --
>  Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
>  http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Karel Zak]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 09:52:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
> I like the format=auto idea. But we can keep it to just the number of
> columns instead of a full CxR format.

 It would be the best to talk about number of months ;-)

> i.e. format=2 (2x6), format=3 (3x4), format=4 (4x3), and so on.
> perhaps the parameter should be called --columns/-c instead of format.
> We can either have an additional auto value to the format, or have it
> be on by default.
> Having auto on by default means breaking compatibility. Some users
> might be parsing output expecting the default 3x4 view in place and if
> we abruptly change this to be stretched automatically their scripts
> might break.
> 
> Any thoughts on the above? --format vs. --columns? And the default
> value thereof.

Or something else --horizontal-months[=<num>|auto]

and think we can support arbitrary <num> in range 1-12.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Gennady Kovshenin]

Agreed. And the default would still be 3, right? For back compatibility.

What's the short version of the flag -z?

And would the auto mode try to still limit itself to a rectangle? Or
stretch indefinitely?

I appreciate your time brainstorming about this, Karel. Thank you.
Regards,
Gennady Kovshenin


On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 5:33 PM, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 09:52:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
>> I like the format=auto idea. But we can keep it to just the number of
>> columns instead of a full CxR format.
>
>  It would be the best to talk about number of months ;-)
>
>> i.e. format=2 (2x6), format=3 (3x4), format=4 (4x3), and so on.
>> perhaps the parameter should be called --columns/-c instead of format.
>> We can either have an additional auto value to the format, or have it
>> be on by default.
>> Having auto on by default means breaking compatibility. Some users
>> might be parsing output expecting the default 3x4 view in place and if
>> we abruptly change this to be stretched automatically their scripts
>> might break.
>>
>> Any thoughts on the above? --format vs. --columns? And the default
>> value thereof.
>
> Or something else --horizontal-months[=<num>|auto]
>
> and think we can support arbitrary <num> in range 1-12.
>
>     Karel
>
> --
>  Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
>  http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Sami Kerola]

> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 5:33 PM, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 09:52:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
>>> I like the format=auto idea. But we can keep it to just the number of
>>> columns instead of a full CxR format.
>>
>>  It would be the best to talk about number of months ;-)
>>
>>> i.e. format=2 (2x6), format=3 (3x4), format=4 (4x3), and so on.
>>> perhaps the parameter should be called --columns/-c instead of format.
>>> We can either have an additional auto value to the format, or have it
>>> be on by default.
>>> Having auto on by default means breaking compatibility. Some users
>>> might be parsing output expecting the default 3x4 view in place and if
>>> we abruptly change this to be stretched automatically their scripts
>>> might break.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts on the above? --format vs. --columns? And the default
>>> value thereof.
>>
>> Or something else --horizontal-months[=<num>|auto]
>>
>> and think we can support arbitrary <num> in range 1-12.
>>
>>     Karel

On 22 September 2014 12:38, Gennady Kovshenin <gennady@kovshenin.com> wrote:

> Agreed. And the default would still be 3, right? For back compatibility.
>
> What's the short version of the flag -z?

Mind the fact the cal is part of posix, so adding short options may
cause (theoretically) necessity to be either backwards incompatible or
break the standard.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cal.html

> And would the auto mode try to still limit itself to a rectangle? Or
> stretch indefinitely?

IMHO rectangles are fine if the they are requested with an option
something like

--geometry=x:y

But if the number of months is wanted to be

--begin=<date>
--end=<date>

Then the default geometry 3xN should be applied, unless otherwise
defined by user.

When --geometry=5:3 is defined and --begin && --end define a period of
a year (for example), then the last three 'month' entries should be
blanks.

Would that make sense?

-- 
Sami Kerola
http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Gennady Kovshenin]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 6:02 PM, Sami Kerola <kerolasa@iki.fi> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 5:33 PM, Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 09:52:36PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
>>>> I like the format=auto idea. But we can keep it to just the number of
>>>> columns instead of a full CxR format.
>>>
>>>  It would be the best to talk about number of months ;-)
>>>
>>>> i.e. format=2 (2x6), format=3 (3x4), format=4 (4x3), and so on.
>>>> perhaps the parameter should be called --columns/-c instead of format.
>>>> We can either have an additional auto value to the format, or have it
>>>> be on by default.
>>>> Having auto on by default means breaking compatibility. Some users
>>>> might be parsing output expecting the default 3x4 view in place and if
>>>> we abruptly change this to be stretched automatically their scripts
>>>> might break.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts on the above? --format vs. --columns? And the default
>>>> value thereof.
>>>
>>> Or something else --horizontal-months[=<num>|auto]
>>>
>>> and think we can support arbitrary <num> in range 1-12.
>>>
>>>     Karel
>
> On 22 September 2014 12:38, Gennady Kovshenin <gennady@kovshenin.com> wrote:
>
>> Agreed. And the default would still be 3, right? For back compatibility.
>>
>> What's the short version of the flag -z?
>
> Mind the fact the cal is part of posix, so adding short options may
> cause (theoretically) necessity to be either backwards incompatible or
> break the standard.
>
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cal.html
>
>> And would the auto mode try to still limit itself to a rectangle? Or
>> stretch indefinitely?
>
> IMHO rectangles are fine if the they are requested with an option
> something like
>
> --geometry=x:y
>
> But if the number of months is wanted to be
>
> --begin=<date>
> --end=<date>

I haven't seen these flags anywhere in cal. Output is always limited
to 12 months in year view.
Why even bother with the rows when asking for the columns is enough?

I'd just go with "width", or "horizontal" as Karel suggested. "width"
makes perfect sense wherein users just supply the number of columns in
their year view and a value of 0 or auto would autoset it based on the
width of the current terminal (limited to a nice rectangle).

Karel, how do you feel about the --width -w option?

>
> Then the default geometry 3xN should be applied, unless otherwise
> defined by user.
>
> When --geometry=5:3 is defined and --begin && --end define a period of
> a year (for example), then the last three 'month' entries should be
> blanks.
>
> Would that make sense?
>
> --
> Sami Kerola
> http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/

Re: Fwd: [util-linux] cal: add landscape layout for yearly views (#117)

[Karel Zak]

On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 12:14:31PM +0600, Gennady Kovshenin wrote:
> Karel, how do you feel about the --width -w option?

 --width seems like option with mandatory argument, command line
 without another argument (e.g. "cal --width") seems strange.


 --horizontal[=<months>] where default is "auto" seems better ;-)

> > Then the default geometry 3xN should be applied, unless otherwise
> > defined by user.

 3xN should be be default when no --horizontal is specified.

 cal -y                  ==> 3 columns
 cal --horizontal        ==> depends on terminal width
 cal --horizontal=6      ==> 6 columns

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com