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Scope names: overhaul support for bat themes #17

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merged 25 commits into from Dec 6, 2022

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The main motivations for this overhaul were:

  • optimizing support for the default theme (Monokai Extended).
    • "optimizing" = every token class uses a different color.
  • optimizing support for at least one of the themes that use the terminal's 16 customizable colors (ansi, base16, base16-256).
    • I managed to optimize ansi, was unable to do so for base16 (but it has improved), base16-246 is broken.
  • have pathnames be colorized on most themes.
    • this was a relatively recent addition and I hadn't optimized for this.
  • not breaking any of the themes that were previously ok.
    • which I achieved, while also making quite a few themes usable that weren't before.

What follows is a side-by-side diff of the color changes for every theme. Left is before, right is after. Dark themes go first, light themes last.

The images include italics. But for each theme that shows italics there's also a (default) version without italics, just run bat without --italic-text.

Emoji key:

  • ⬆️ = critical improvement, from unusable to optimized
  • ↗️ = slight improvement
  • ➡️ = mostly equivalent, no difference in terms of "optimal support".
    • including themes that only added support for pathnames, which was easy enough to do
  • 🚫 = unusable theme
    • often because one of options, arguments or headings is not colorized; or options = headings.

Monokai Extended ↗️

image

ansi ⬆️

image

1337 ➡️

image

Coldark-Dark ➡️

image

DarkNeon ➡️ 🚫

options not colorized.

image

Dracula ➡️

image

Monokai Extended Bright ↗️

headings = pathnames, but at least now headings != arguments. pathnames are infrequent.

image

Monokai Extended Origin ↗️

image

Nord ➡️ 🚫

subcommands & pathnames not colorized.

image

OneHalfDark ⬆️

image

Solarized (dark) ➡️

image

Sublime Snazzy ➡️

image

TwoDark ⬆️

image

Visual Studio Dark+ ↗️

better hue distribution across classes.

image

base16 ↗️

pathnames not colorized.

image

base16-256 ↗️ 🚫

subcommands colorized in black.

image

gruvbox-dark ↗️ 🚫

headings = options, pathnames not colorized.

image

zenburn ➡️

image

Coldark-Cold ➡️

image

GitHub ⬆️

image

Monokai Extended Light ➡️

headings != arguments anymore. but previous color for headings had less brightness -> better contrast.

image

OneHalfLight ⬆️

image

Solarized (light) ➡️

image

ansi (with light terminal theme) ⬆️

image

base16 (with light terminal theme) ↗️ 🚫

normal text barely visible, probably a grey variation (colors 0x7 or 0x8).

image

base16-256 (with light terminal theme) ↗️ 🚫

normal text barely visible.

image

gruvbox-light ↗️ 🚫

headings = options, pathnames not colorized.

image

Main reason: the default Monokai theme colorizes strings in yellow. As
stated in docs/Principles.md, this is a constraint for scope names &
theme support because it mirrors how clap colorizes `bat --help`.

Other than that, census of changes:

PROS:

- Monokai*: makes the colors for headings & arguments different. Very
    important because this is the main theme.
- OneHalf* & TwoDark: makes the colors for headings & options different.
- base16*: from blue (= options) to green (= nothing), yay!
- DarkNeon: headings from beige (too similar to default white color) to
    fluorescent yellow (much more visible!)
- GitHub (light theme): from default black color to dark blue. Not very
    visible but still a net improvement.

CONS:

- loses the bold style for headings in Coldark* and Solarized*
- Nord: headings go from light blue to default gray color. Support for
this theme was already a lost cause anyways.

NEUTRAL:

- Dracula: from blue to yellow
- Coldark*: from blue to green, which makes it a bit more similar to
    arguments (teal). But maybe the loss of bold aggravates this change?
- Solarized*: from orange to green. Dang, I really liked orange headings.
    Same as Coldark about bold.
- Visual Studio Dark+: headings from blue to orange. They were pretty
similar to arguments (a lighter blue) so a bit of an improvement.
- ANSI: from blue (= options) to green (= arguments). Meh.
Whoever thought 2 scopes per line was a good idea? tsk tsk
Allow it to take options (like -U5) or arguments (like a commit SHA).
It's all PROS:

- Coldark* and Solarized* regain the bold style on headings
- Nord regains the blue color for headings (from default gray)

This commit fixes all of the CONS from commit
0852965

It's cool to keep the constant.etc scope because it makes headings bold
in the Zenburn theme.
Intended to fix base16 but doesn't. Fixes ansi.

Lots of weird changes in {a|b|c} |-separators
For comparison purposes, with what comes next.
The main improvement this gives is it fixes no-color arguments in base16
and arguments=headings in ansi, which are two themes I definitely wanted
to support. Because they use the terminal's color palette, instead of
arbitrary colors.

It also brings back some cool colors I lost on changing the heading
scope: blue on Coldark, orange on Solarized. It even improves support
for gruvbox (but still bad).

It's kind of weird to see Monokai arguments being purple instead of
brown-orange, but it makes sense in the context of the larger body of
themes. I will reuse that color (variable.parameter) on files' scopes
probably.

Things I tried:

- comment: bad, subtle hues on most themes
- support.type: bad
- constant: not targeted by many themes
- constant.numeric: may be an option
- constant.other: an excellent option
- constant.language: worse than .other
- constant.character: same
- storage.type: not particularly good
- storage.modifier: bad, too similar to keyword (for subcommands)
- support.constant: not particularly good
- support.function: bad, too similar to entity.name.function (for options)
- support.class: not particularly good
- support.type: bad
- support.module: bad
- keyword.control: bad, mostly like keyword.other (for subcommands)
- keyword.operator: same
- keyword.declaration: same
- variable.function: bad, often similar to entity.name.function
- variable.language: bad, no support on Monokai
- variable: bad, not matched by many themes
- entity.name.tag: often similar to keyword, not good enough.

Recap of scopes that I may use elsewhere:

- variable.parameter
- entity.name.tag
- constant. variants
- keyword. variants

I basically combed through the common scope names here:
https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/scope_naming.html
Cause I feel like it looks too prominent in Monokai, that it may make
sense to switch it with the other-defs one (for subcommands mainly).
To free up the variable.parameter class for visual comparisons, now that
I'm focusing on file definitions.
i.e.: `constant.other` (A) for subcommands and `keyword.other` (B) for
arguments & option arguments.

Because, on most themes [3], the colors for A coordinate better with
the colors for options: `entity.name.function` (C). As compared to the
colors for B.

Particularly, one or both of the following hold:

1. A's hue has more contrast to C than B, which helps make apart options
and option arguments.
2. B is significantly more vivid* than A, sometimes even more than C,
which puts the focus on option arguments and detracts from options. But
options are more important than their arguments.

* Vivid as in brighter / more saturated.

For (2) I also fancy that subcommands are displayed in a more vivid
color than arguments and option arguments.

[3] A recap of how the change works on most themes:

- Coldark *: (1) applies
- Dracula: neutral?
- GitHub Light: 2
- Monokai *: 2
- Monokai Extended Light: the opposite is true, worse off
- OneHalfDark: 2
- OneHalfLight: 2
- TwoDark: 2
- Solarized *: 2
- Snazzy: 2
- Visual Studio Dark+: 1
. ansi: 2 but may lose out a bit on 1 (yellow is usually brighter / more
    saturated than magenta; but the later is closer to blue)
. base16: idem but swap yellow for red.
- gruvbox: neutral?
- zenburn: loses out on 1, but makes subcommands bold, which is better
    than option arguments
I was quickly testing the swap without properly changing scope names and
I missed these unchanged names when I committed.

No effective changes.
This is more in line with how scope names work everywhere.

Now they will be targeted with the same color / style as command
arguments like this: `keyword.other.argument.cmd-help`

And it can still be targeted with a different color than that like this:
`option.name.function.option.cmd-help keyword.other.argument.cmd-help`

Before, you needed to use a different selector for each of them.

We should probably differentiate between option arguments and _plus_
option arguments but let's go with this until somebody complains. Less
complexity.
Cause it's supposed to take the same color as section headings. This was
pending since I changed those.
Context: Monokai Extended is the default theme for bat. It's also the
theme we use for highlight regression tests.

Earlier in this overhaul of scopes, I changed the scope for headings in
order to better support most themes, particularly themes based on the 16
customizable terminal colors (ansi & base-16), which previously used the
same color for headings & options.

Before that change, Monokai used the same orange color for both headings
and arguments (which is bad). After it, headings became a pale yellow.

Later on, I also changed the scope for arguments, because it caused
color repetitions in other themes I also care about.

So in the end, for the default Monokai theme, we went from an overuse of
the orange color to an absence of it. Which looks weird to me, I'm used
to the orange.

Furthermore, and perhaps more relevant, I'm not much a fan of the pale
yellow color that headings took. I don't think it helps highlight them
over other elements (options in particular), which is bad.

So I looked for orange color assignations in the theme [1], and found
the previous orange is a bit hard to target without messing up other
themes. But there's this alternative hue of orange that's used on a few
scopes, including this very specific one that other themes don't target:
`meta.constructor.argument.css`. I don't even know what that is, Google
didn't help.

Coincidentally, this is a slightly different hue of orange, closer to
gold, with more brightness. Which is great for highlighting headings
over other elements. At the same time, it's close enough to the previous
orange hue that users (or me) won't feel the difference unless they're
looking for it.

It's also closer to my preferred shade of yellow (cf. the change on
docs/Principles.md).

ETA: another nice side effect I noticed testing this against highlighted
regression tests: this orange-golden color is closer to what Manpage
headings get with that syntax (it adds a scope that's painted with the
previous orange). The pale yellow looks weird next to that.

The only other built-in theme where this tweak causes a diff is Dark
Neon, where headings become a darker green (worse). But it's an
acceptable regression because Dark Neon was badly supported already
(options use the default foreground color).

If this hack causes problems with other built-in themes down the line,
I'm open to reverting it. For now, it's a net improvement in my book.

[1] https://github.com/jonschlinkert/sublime-monokai-extended/blob/master/Monokai%20Extended.tmTheme
`option.name` is not a thing, `entity.name` is.

Fixing this, a previous bug rears its head. But I already had a solution
in a stash so :shrugs:

The bug: de-scope by `clear_scopes: 1` doesn't work if the outer context
assigns a composite scope (like `entity.name.function variable.parameter`).

To properly clear that (and go back to default foreground color) you
need to clear all the scopes except the base one (`text.cmd-help`)

Which means that to properly do this in arguments (1 scope as opposed
to 2 from option arguments), we should only pop 1 scope, not 2. This is
not a problem in most themes, only in Gruvbox (which is broken anyways),
so not a priority to properly handle this.

The non-wrong way to do this is having a de-scope context for contexts
that add 1 scope, 2 scopes, etc. As long as these context have to
de-scope at some point.

The correct way to do this is devising an entirely different algorithm,
but refactoring this hack is not a priority
This changes the color for this element in Monokai, from orange (not the
same as headings golden, but pretty close to) to blue.

This affects all of the Monokai variants except Monokai Extended Bright.

There's also some weird bug in ansi with how the color is not properly
cleared after the token and it propagates to the "bla bla bla"
explanation.

I don't know if the error is on bat/syntect's side or ours.
Because it was yellow, same as subcommands. Now it's cyan.

I was unable to fix base16 though (where FILE_DEF remains the default
foreground color). Fixing that implies removing the `variable.parameter`
scope and that would make a lot of other themes repeat colors.

Supporting even one of the themes that uses the terminal's 16
configurable colors (ansi, base16, base16-256) is already plenty.

The current version on main has a suboptimal ansi (headings' color ==
options) and a broken base16 (same plus arguments are default fg).
@victor-gp victor-gp force-pushed the overhaul-color-theme-support branch 2 times, most recently from a6355dd to 1964733 Compare December 6, 2022 22:15
In order to keep the PR diff to the point. I plan to update syntax &
highlight regression tests on the merge commit.

Plus, syntax tests passed on the first run of CI, but they shouldn't.
I've changed the scope names for most classes yet I haven't updated
syntax tests.

Possibly an issue with the caching? I must look into this asap.
@victor-gp victor-gp merged commit 7e36154 into main Dec 6, 2022
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Closing note: I don't want to do an overhaul of scopes ever again. This one was life-draining.

@victor-gp victor-gp deleted the overhaul-color-theme-support branch December 6, 2022 22:51
victor-gp added a commit to victor-gp/bat that referenced this pull request Dec 7, 2022
This update includes an overhaul of scope names to better support the
set of themes included with bat.

You can find a visual diff for every theme in this PR:
victor-gp/cmd-help-sublime-syntax#17

This commit updates the cmd-help syntax test because the scopes (-> colors)
have changed.
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