gitk: use headoutlinecolor, headbgcolor, and tagfgcolor config settings to change the color of the tags and head outlines and fill

[MagmaiKH]

This patch makes the config settings, headoutlinecolor and tagfgcolor, work.
These are existing config settings but not used in the code.

(I noticed that tagfgcolor was not working while making an extension for vscode that exports its color theme to gitk.)
(Upon review of the code I found that headoutlinecolor was also not used and investigated and fixed it.)

This simple patch has them affect the target UI elements while drawing refs and their outlined boxes.
Tags are drawn in their own code branch then heads and non-heads are drawn in another one.
Because both head and non-head refs are drawn in the same loop the colors used to draw (and fill) toggle between the head colors and (still hard-coded) non-head ref colors.

Image showing it working, reviewing the patch that made it work.

CC: Johannes Sixt j6t@kdbg.org

[gitgitgadget]

Welcome to GitGitGadget

Hi @MagmaiKH, and welcome to GitGitGadget, the GitHub App to send patch series to the Git mailing list from GitHub Pull Requests.

Please make sure that either:

• Your Pull Request has a good description, if it consists of multiple commits, as it will be used as cover letter.
• Your Pull Request description is empty, if it consists of a single commit, as the commit message should be descriptive enough by itself.

You can CC potential reviewers by adding a footer to the PR description with the following syntax:

CC: Revi Ewer <revi.ewer@example.com>, Ill Takalook <ill.takalook@example.net>

NOTE: DO NOT copy/paste your CC list from a previous GGG PR's description,
because it will result in a malformed CC list on the mailing list. See
example.

Also, it is a good idea to review the commit messages one last time, as the Git project expects them in a quite specific form:

• the lines should not exceed 76 columns,
• the first line should be like a header and typically start with a prefix like "tests:" or "revisions:" to state which subsystem the change is about, and
• the commit messages' body should be describing the "why?" of the change.
• Finally, the commit messages should end in a Signed-off-by: line matching the commits' author.

It is in general a good idea to await the automated test ("Checks") in this Pull Request before contributing the patches, e.g. to avoid trivial issues such as unportable code.

Contributing the patches

Before you can contribute the patches, your GitHub username needs to be added to the list of permitted users. Any already-permitted user can do that, by adding a comment to your PR of the form /allow. A good way to find other contributors is to locate recent pull requests where someone has been /allowed:

• Search: is:pr is:open "/allow"

Both the person who commented /allow and the PR author are able to /allow you.

An alternative is the channel #git-devel on the Libera Chat IRC network:

<newcontributor> I've just created my first PR, could someone please /allow me? https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/12345
<veteran> newcontributor: it is done
<newcontributor> thanks!

Once on the list of permitted usernames, you can contribute the patches to the Git mailing list by adding a PR comment /submit.

If you want to see what email(s) would be sent for a /submit request, add a PR comment /preview to have the email(s) sent to you. You must have a public GitHub email address for this. Note that any reviewers CC'd via the list in the PR description will not actually be sent emails.

After you submit, GitGitGadget will respond with another comment that contains the link to the cover letter mail in the Git mailing list archive. Please make sure to monitor the discussion in that thread and to address comments and suggestions (while the comments and suggestions will be mirrored into the PR by GitGitGadget, you will still want to reply via mail).

If you do not want to subscribe to the Git mailing list just to be able to respond to a mail, you can download the mbox from the Git mailing list archive (click the (raw) link), then import it into your mail program. If you use GMail, you can do this via:

curl -g --user "<EMailAddress>:<Password>" \
    --url "imaps://imap.gmail.com/INBOX" -T /path/to/raw.txt

To iterate on your change, i.e. send a revised patch or patch series, you will first want to (force-)push to the same branch. You probably also want to modify your Pull Request description (or title). It is a good idea to summarize the revision by adding something like this to the cover letter (read: by editing the first comment on the PR, i.e. the PR description):

Changes since v1:
- Fixed a typo in the commit message (found by ...)
- Added a code comment to ... as suggested by ...
...

To send a new iteration, just add another PR comment with the contents: /submit.

Need help?

New contributors who want advice are encouraged to join git-mentoring@googlegroups.com, where volunteers who regularly contribute to Git are willing to answer newbie questions, give advice, or otherwise provide mentoring to interested contributors. You must join in order to post or view messages, but anyone can join.

You may also be able to find help in real time in the developer IRC channel, #git-devel on Libera Chat. Remember that IRC does not support offline messaging, so if you send someone a private message and log out, they cannot respond to you. The scrollback of #git-devel is archived, though.

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit 3c592f2:
gitk: use headoutlinecolor, headbgcolor, and tagfgcolor config settings to change the color of the tags and head outlines and fill

• First line of commit message is too long (> 76 columns)
• Lines in the body of the commit messages should be wrapped between 60 and 76 characters.
  Indented lines, and lines without whitespace, are exempt

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit ddbbd74:
gitk: use config settings for head/tag colors

• Lines in the body of the commit messages should be wrapped between 60 and 76 characters.
  Indented lines, and lines without whitespace, are exempt

[Ikke]

/allow

[gitgitgadget]

User MagmaiKH is now allowed to use GitGitGadget.

WARNING: MagmaiKH has no public email address set on GitHub; GitGitGadget needs an email address to Cc: you on your contribution, so that you receive any feedback on the Git mailing list. Go to https://github.com/settings/profile to make your preferred email public to let GitGitGadget know which email address to use.

[MagmaiKH]

/preview

[gitgitgadget]

Preview email sent as pull.2030.git.1768284468036.gitgitgadget@gmail.com

[MagmaiKH]

/submit

[gitgitgadget]

Submitted as pull.2030.git.1768285721660.gitgitgadget@gmail.com

To fetch this version into FETCH_HEAD:

git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/ pr-2030/MagmaiKH/sbarber/use_color_config_variables-v1

To fetch this version to local tag pr-2030/MagmaiKH/sbarber/use_color_config_variables-v1:

git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/ tag pr-2030/MagmaiKH/sbarber/use_color_config_variables-v1

[gitgitgadget]

Johannes Sixt wrote on the Git mailing list (how to reply to this email):

Thank you for your contribution!

Am 13.01.26 um 07:28 schrieb Shannon Barber via GitGitGadget:
> From: Shannon Barber <sbarber@dataspeedinc.com>
> 
> The drawtags procedure currently uses headfgcolor for all label text,
>  ignoring the tagfgcolor setting.
> 
> The call to create the outline polygon for (non-tag) heads currently
>  has the color for headoutlinecolor hardcoded to black.
> 
> This patch maintains the variables for the non-tag refs so that heads
>  are colored differently from non-head (non-tag) refs.
> 
> The outline and fill colors for the non-head refs remain hardcoded to
>  the prior values, black & #ddddff.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Shannon Barber <sgbarber@gmail.com>

In this project, the author and signer-off should be identical. Please
choose one identity for both.

It was very hard to figure out what the patch attempts to do. The commit
message wasn't very helpful, I am afraid. I would have appreciated if a
short summary of the status quo at a high level had been given. For example:

--- 8< ---
Gitk draws ref names with 4 different styles depending on the type of ref:

  - ...
  ...

The styles use variables that can be set in the configuration file for
..., but hard-codes the style for ... But there do exist configuration
entries for ... but they are not used. Replace the hard-coded values for
these latter ones, but leave the remaining styles unchanged.

...
--- 8< ---

What is also missing is what the implications for users are after the
change. Clearly, the settings stored in the configuration file are now
heeded. But what happens for users who are unaware that there are
settings (since they are not accessible via the UI). Are any observable
changes intentional? If yes, what is the possible impact?

BTW, the paragraph indentation is a bit odd.

The patch text looks good.

-- Hannes

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit bdff4af:
gitk: Honor the headoutlinecolor and tagfgcolor config settings

• Prefixed commit message must be in lower case

[gitgitgadget]

Johannes Sixt wrote on the Git mailing list (how to reply to this email):

Am 15.01.26 um 07:03 schrieb Shannon Barber:
> I think I can simplify it to :
>>  gitk: honor the headoutlinecolor and tagfgcolor config settings
> I pushed a fix with a corrected sign-off.
> 
> These settings already exist but the code ignored them.
> 
> I do not understand your question about a high-level summary.
> There are no structural changes.
> There are no functional changes.
> This is a cosmetic change to how the head and tag refs are drawn, to use
> already existing color configurations (that were inadvertently ignored.)

While the effect of the change is just cosmetic (in the sense that the
visual appearance of the graph labels is changed), it is not a "no
functional change".

Consider a user who has experimented with the configuration file. They
may have found that changing the value of these variables in the file
doesn't work, and then forgot about it, leaving the modified value in
the file. With this change, the value that was so far ignored, now
suddenly has an effect. It is worthwhile to analyze such behavior and
document it at least in the commit message, so that later readers of the
code and history know that the case was considered.

You should think about such effects and note them in the commit message.
Include the expected behavior in such edge cases. That's what I meant by
 high-level summary.

-- Hannes