`asdf current` should set spacing dynamically

[MetricMike]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Some projects (hi, java!) use names that cause some overflow on the asdf current command.

metricmike@MTOWER:~/projects/dev-environment$ asdf current
awscli          ______          No version set. Run "asdf <global|shell|local> awscli <version>"
dotnet-core     5.0.102         /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
golang          1.15.8          /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
gradle          7.0-milestone-1 /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
java            corretto-11.0.10.9.1 /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
maven           3.6.3           /home/metricmike/.tool-versions

Describe the solution you'd like

asdf current should set its columns dynamically based on the plugins it's going to output

metricmike@MTOWER:~/projects/dev-environment$ asdf current
awscli          ______                    No version set. Run "asdf <global|shell|local> awscli <version>"
dotnet-core     5.0.102                   /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
golang          1.15.8                    /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
gradle          7.0-milestone-1           /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
java            corretto-11.0.10.9.1      /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
maven           3.6.3                     /home/metricmike/.tool-versions

Additional context

Happy to work on this myself, this issue is mostly a placeholder for me :)

[jthegedus]

Hey @MetricMike thanks for proposing this and volunteering to work on it. There's a lot of background to improving the terminal output. I will link here and encourage you to read before working on this.

column was previously added and removed as we cannot assume it is available on all machines:

• initial add: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/pull/604
• reported error from user: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/issues/661
• removal of column: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/pull/721
• ban of command: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/pull/754

Wrap terminal line outputs to 80 chars (https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/issues/646). This issue discusses:

• 80 line width being our target for commands that output to the terminal. As you have discovered this sometimes isn't the best result
• a --porcelain flag for scripts to consume (removing their reliance on the current output allowing use to develop that with a user focus)
• a dynamic method to detect the current terminal width and render based on that
• a flag or env var for either --less or --more on command output for users, particularly those that output a lot of information (like asdf plugin list --urls or asdf plugin list --refs --urls, see the expandable section https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/issues/646#issuecomment-645227580)

The current implementation of asdf current uses printf with min padding on each col.

Knowing the max beforehand is difficult (not impossible obviously because column does its magic) and ultimately letting the terminal perform wrapping seems like the best option. Knowing what width is acceptable to the user and how to output accordingly is difficult as I am sure you can see.

Finally, a solution I (few have chimed in here) would like to see is one which we can apply everywhere:

• short and aligned output to the user is the default (80 cols or terminal width detected)
• if a machine readable flag exists, then truncating the default user output if cols are wide (java) with printf may be acceptable

  $ asdf current
  awscli      ______          No version set. Run "asdf <global|shell|local> awscli <version>"
  dotnet-core 5.0.102         /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
  golang      1.15.8          /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
  gradle      7.0-milestone-1 /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
  java        corretto-11.0.. /home/metricmike/.tool-versions
  maven       3.6.3           /home/metricmike/.tool-versions

• a flag or env var to show full output to the user (no truncation and aligned as wide as needed)