Add a more terminal-friendly command layout

[stdedos]

I have been trying to use bat as a drop-in replacement to cat, and routinely I fall into various small problems.
Today, I want to talk about line numbers.

Sometimes I want, while seeing a file, to copy a portion of it.
At the same time, I find line numbers useful.

The above give me an impass:

• Copying part of a file to some other place, with the leading line numbers is usually not okay (except if I copy to an intermediate Sublime /w multicursors)
• Temporarily having no line numbers is not "that straightforward":
  • I don't remember the flag for it
  • no tab-completion for bash
  • Will either incur a re-execution, or
  • using less' line numbers will add a +3 offset (separator, filename, separator)
  • bat cannot, by itself, on-demand add/remove numbers during interaction (as usually it's job is most likely already done before I see anything)

With all the aforementioned, I propose a new layout theme, that starts with the file, and leads with whatever else (separator, filename, separator). With that, using less' -N becomes a trivial solution to this issue.

Or implement less in bat 😜

[sharkdp]

Thank you for the detailed feedback.

Sometimes I want, while seeing a file, to copy a portion of it.
At the same time, I find line numbers useful.

That hat been discussed multiple times. See e.g. #549, #296, #467, #1177, #939

With all the aforementioned, I propose a new layout theme, that starts with the file, and leads with whatever else (separator, filename, separator).

I don't understand?

Or implement less in bat 😜

See #1053

[stdedos]

Sometimes I want, while seeing a file, to copy a portion of it.
At the same time, I find line numbers useful.

That hat been discussed multiple times. See e.g. #549, #296, #467, #1177, #939

Oh, I missed the "toggle" keyword 😕

With all the aforementioned, I propose a new layout theme, that starts with the file, and leads with whatever else (separator, filename, separator).

I don't understand?

Basically the reverse of this, without the sidebar

# Markdown example

...

----
File:
----

(I'm sorry I don't have access to a textual bat output right now)

It looks weird, prohibits git-markers, but it would be a minimal solution to this (not considering the already-mentioned tickets ofc)

[sharkdp]

You can already do this by adding

--style=header,grid,snip

to your config file.

[stdedos]

I meant:

bat$ (master u=) bat examples/cat.rs 
/// A very simple colorized `cat` clone, using `bat` as a library.
/// See `src/bin/bat` for the full `bat` application.
use bat::PrettyPrinter;

fn main() {
    PrettyPrinter::new()
        .header(true)
        .grid(true)
        .line_numbers(true)
        .input_files(std::env::args_os().skip(1))
        .print()
        .unwrap();
}
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 File: examples/cat.rs
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
bat$ (master u=)

which less -N can number accurately

[sharkdp]

If it's going to work for a single file only, why not leave out the header part completely?

[stdedos]

True dat. I didn't think of it.

[sharkdp]

I take this to mean that this can be closed?

[stdedos]

Well, I don't know what would help more, given that bundled pager is already in planning and since my idea of header-becoming-footer is not getting traction...

I am now using the new configuration, and I feel that "the bat I know" is no longer there.
Maybe I need to add a bat alias with the default configuration, and let non-aliased innovations take the "only coloring" execution path.

[sharkdp]

Hm. I'm not really sure how we could help with that?