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gitk: make color preferences visually more pleasing and better usable - #2194

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j6t:gitk-prefs-color-buttons
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gitk: make color preferences visually more pleasing and better usable#2194
j6t wants to merge 5 commits into
gitgitgadget:masterfrom
j6t:gitk-prefs-color-buttons

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@j6t

@j6t j6t commented Aug 5, 2026

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I find the user interface to set the color preferences a bit ugly for these reasons:

  • The color samples are not clickable as one would expect who enters the dialog. Instead, the description is the button that must be clicked.

  • Since the descriptive texts are different for the preferences, the width of the buttons are different, too.

  • The descriptions themselves are not always natural language (read: they are nerdy) and use abbreviations.

This series makes the descriptions static text and turns the color samples into the clickable buttons. It also makes the descriptions and dialog titles more natural language.

This is the dialog before the change:
Screenshot_color_buttons_before
And this is the dialog after the change:
Screenshot_color_buttons_after

@j6t

j6t commented Aug 5, 2026

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/submit

@gitgitgadget

gitgitgadget Bot commented Aug 5, 2026

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Error: git --git-dir=pr-repo.git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/ -- +refs/notes/gitgitgadget:refs/notes/gitgitgadget +refs/heads/maint:refs/remotes/upstream/maint +refs/heads/seen:refs/remotes/upstream/seen +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/upstream/master +refs/heads/next:refs/remotes/upstream/next +refs/pull/2194/head:refs/pull/2194/head +refs/pull/2194/merge:refs/pull/2194/merge failed: 128,
fatal: couldn't find remote ref refs/pull/2194/merge

@j6t

j6t commented Aug 5, 2026

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Hmm, these patches are sourced directly from j6t/gitk/pull/48, so the edits lack the gitk-git/ prefix. Is anything special needed to handle this in Gitgitgadget?

@dscho

dscho commented Aug 5, 2026

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Is anything special needed to handle this in Gitgitgadget?

Yes, I think we also need to mirror gitk/master in addition to git-gui/master, then...

@dscho
dscho changed the base branch from master to gitk/main August 5, 2026 12:32
@dscho
dscho changed the base branch from gitk/main to gitk/master August 5, 2026 12:32
@dscho

dscho commented Aug 5, 2026

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@j6t I re-ran the workflow run that wanted to handle your /submit.

@gitgitgadget

gitgitgadget Bot commented Aug 5, 2026

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Error: Unrecognized project

@dscho

dscho commented Aug 5, 2026

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Error: Unrecognized project

That's what I feared. There's special logic in GitGitGadget for Git GUI... And none yet for gitk.

@dscho

dscho commented Aug 5, 2026

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There's special logic in GitGitGadget for Git GUI... And none yet for gitk.

See https://github.com/gitgitgadget/gitgitgadget/blob/cadedf4eec007b3798f61e825af876cc7adc09ba/lib/project-options.ts#L27-L31

@j6t

j6t commented Aug 5, 2026

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@dscho What if I just rewrite the branch by cherry-picking the commits into the git code? The branch here would be abandoned once I merge my original PR in the gitk repository, but at least I should be able to use Gitgitgadget as the ML gateway.

dscho commented Aug 5, 2026

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That would make for a fine stop-gap solution.

j6t added 5 commits August 5, 2026 20:02
After the user has selected a color in the Preferences dialog, the
helper proc prefspage_set_colorswatches is used update the colors shown
in the Preferences dialog. Use this proc also after the Preferences
dialog is constructed to show the initial colors. This keeps the
procedure that gives the UI elements their colors in a single place.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
The color selection elements in the Preferences dialog are set up in a
very uniform manner. The code doing that has grown in the past by simply
modifying a copy of a paragraph. Extract the varying parts into a list
and then operate the repeating parts in a foreach loop. This helps a
later change where we want to set up the UI elements in a different way.

Change the UI names "markbgsep" and "selbgsep" to drop the "sep", which
has obviously been left over by accident when "hunksep" was copied.

Change the suffix "but" to "btn", which resonates a bit better when
reading the code.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
When the user goes to the color preferences, the eye is automatically
drawn to the color samples. However, clicking on the sample with the
intent to change it does nothing. Instead, the text label also acts as
a button and must be clicked to change the color.

Turn the color samples into clickable buttons and the text labels into
static text. Use non-themed buttons because their color can be changed
by simply specifying the color properties. (Themed buttons would need
a lot more elaboration.)

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
The labels used to be clickable buttons. These would have looked funny
if they carried long texts. For this reason, abbreviations and "nerdy"
texts were used to keep them short. Since these labels are now static
text, bring them closer to natural language.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
When the user clicks a color preference, a color selection dialog is
presented whose title is provided in parts by the caller. The dialog
implementation must supply the rest of the title. This is unfriendly
for translations. Provide the full title by the caller. Rewrite the
texts to be more natural language.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
@j6t
j6t changed the base branch from gitk/master to master August 5, 2026 18:13
@j6t
j6t force-pushed the gitk-prefs-color-buttons branch from 22c2797 to 1e1bcfa Compare August 5, 2026 18:14
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2 participants