Re: [PATCH 1/2] git-gui: warn if the commit message contains lines longer than the set limit

[Pratyush Yadav <me@yadavpratyush.com>]

On 04/09/19 10:43PM, Bert Wesarg wrote:
[snip]
> > > fixed width to avoid creating too wide commit messages. Though 
> > > this was
> > > only enforced in the GUI. Now we also check the commit message at commit
> > > time for long lines and ask the author for confirmation if it exceeds the
> > > configured line length.
> >
> > Hmm, more confirmation dialogs tend to mean more annoyance for users,
> > especially considering that the line length limit is a
> > project-specific _policy_ (so this has the potential to annoy a lot of
> > people), and also because there often are legitimate reasons for
> > exceeding the limit (such as pasting in URLs).
> 
> these people did not saw the entered text anyway. they would have
> needed to change the option (default to 75 characters) to see what
> they have typed. which could have been garbage to begin with.

Not true in my experience. Sure, no scrollbar appears, but the view of 
the textbox still scrolls when I type in a long line. I can go back to 
seeing the start of the line by moving with the arrow keys.

The point being, you _can_ see what you typed. Do you not get this 
behaviour in Windows (or whatever platform you use)? Maybe that is a 
Tcl/Tk problem?

> > As an alternative to a confirmation dialog, how about instead adding 
> > a
> > _warning_ message (perhaps with red text) on the window itself
> > alongside to the commit message field (below or above it or
> > something)? Is that something that could be triggered by a text widget
> > callback?

I'll chime in with what I think would be a great solution: auto word 
wrapping. This way, the users can set the text width, and not have to 
worry about manually formatting it. Long "words" like URLs would still 
get to be on one line, and we avoid showing annoying dialogs.

-- 
Regards,
Pratyush Yadav