Feature request: Color certain directories a different color

[securisec]

I am not sure if this feature already exists, but if not, I would like to make a feature request.

Feature: Color certain directory patterns a different color. Example: *_vnev would be colored cyan.

Use case: I often use a lot of virtualenvs for python, and my directories always end with the prefix _venv. It would be great to visually differentiate those directories with a color and icon.

[JustinHallquist]

Hey I have no problem tackling this.

Are we looking for this feature to be as specific as adding just the color to folders prefixed with *_vnev or something more general?

Assuming general, for requirements, are we looking for an additional flag to pass that adds colors based on grouped folder suffixes that occur say more than twice?

folder_1_a - new color
folder_2_a - new color
folder_1_b - default

Or would it be a default feature?

Additionally, since the color map is hardcoded, we could do something like add 5 new colors for these grouped folders and just mod repeat over them if someone had a folder structure loaded with this scenario.

thoughts?

[securisec]

@JustinHallquist i do like your proposal. the more general approach seems to be ideal, although if user can override general using the config file to specify a suffix, then that would be good also. either way works. but, the issue with the count based suffix coloring is that what if in my scenario, i have one one something_venv folder? then it wouldnt color it. this is where having control the suffix might be beneficial.

i dont know ruby, but from a pseudo code level, here is my idea.

- read conf file, lets say dirs.yaml
- suffix could be key, while value is color, Ex:
    _venv: lavenderblush
    _test: linen
    _output: slateblue
    ...
- color the dirs with those suffix as the key with the color in the value. 

This proposal gets rid of the need for an additional flag being passed. and is also nicely scaleable. also, in the future, other directory specific features could be added, like adding specific icons to directories with suffixs etc

[JustinHallquist]

I see, thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression we want to color directories with duplicate suffixes in general, not based on existence of suffixes themselves, so that was a misunderstanding on my part.

I think, with the clarification, we would want to avoid a default and leave it up to the user to configure. Feel free to elaborate on use cases for a default though.

The approach you outlined above makes sense -- so the idea would, then, be to have an extension in the yaml for additional suffixes?

    0 # Main Colors
    1 unrecognized_file: gold
    2 recognized_file:   lime
    3 dir:               dodgerblue
    4 suffixes:
    5   _venv:           lavenderblush
    6   _test:           linen

It would be pretty simple to extend that paradigm to prefixes and possibly a regex/wildcard matcher later on if requested, but I think this would be a good start.

thoughts?

[securisec]

Yes, I agree with leaving the configuration upto the user. I agree with your idea completely.

[JustinHallquist]

sorry for the delay, PR is up.

[securisec]

Hey @JustinHallquist , what was your final design? have a dirs.yaml file, or put the postfixes in another config section?

[JustinHallquist]

My understanding is that as long as you have:
dir_suffixes in a yaml in either of these dirs, it'll work as intended

      @filepath = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__),"../yaml/#{filename}")
      @user_config_filepath = File.join(Dir.home, ".config/colorls/#{filename}")

so a user can add it to their config or directly on the colors yaml