Option to remove or squeeze blank lines

[srsudar]

I arbitrarily set the number of blank lines in examples based on what was easy for me to visually parse with and without color. It's been pointed out by @cool-RR that this might be gratuitous and not the best use of screen real estate.

I like the idea of a --squeeze option that removes some of the blank lines. I'm not sure the best way to do this. Some output options I might like to support are:

1: a single blank line between all examples in a section, two lines between sections:

# tar

extract a file

    tar vfxz blah

show file contents

    tar vft blah

another example

    tar blah

# Basic Usage (notice two lines above this)

Blah blah blah.

2: Blank lines between sections, no blanks between examples (this might actually look terrible, not sure):

# tar

extract a file
    tar vfxz blah

show file contents
    tar vft blah

another example
    tar blah

# Basic Usage (notice two lines above this)

Blah blah blah.

Hmm, so maybe the places it would make sense to squeeze would be:

• between sections (i.e. the things that begin with #)
• within an example (although this might look ugly, as shown in number 2 up there)
• between examples (as shown in number 1)

I'm trying to think of ways that would make sense to specify this. Maybe something like --squeeze to make everything one line, and something like --squeeze [0, 1, 2] to put 0 blank lines within an example, 1 between examples, and two between sections, if we wanted to keep it highly customizable. I like some of the blank lines and don't want to throw them out entirely.

[moyiz]

I would go with the second output option. In my opinion it goes better with the eyes. I find it easier to "catch" a relevant example with less blank lines, since the output is colored, which is a really good eye-catcher.

About the feature, sounds very interesting, but I would go with a binary (on / off) option for convenience.

[srsudar]

Do people have opinions on these two? The easiest way to explain --squeeze would just be to say it ensures no more than a single blank line at a time. I still am partial to the more spacious output, myself. Do people that want --squeeze think one would be stronger than the other?

No more than one blank line:

Two lines between sections:

[cool-RR]

I like the second example better.

Sent from my phone. On May 11, 2015 06:37, "Sam Sudar" notifications@github.com wrote:

Do people have opinions on these two? The easiest way to explain --squeeze would just be to say it ensures no more than a single blank line at a time. I still am partial to the more spacious output, myself. Do people that want --squeeze think one would be stronger than the other?

No more than one blank line: [image: screen shot 2015-05-10 at 8 24 33 pm] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6362625/7558220/3e4eb176-f754-11e4-815d-56183ded5490.png

Two lines between sections: [image: screen shot 2015-05-10 at 8 28 18 pm] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6362625/7558221/3e4fdace-f754-11e4-8311-25914b4e1050.png

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/srsudar/eg/issues/20#issuecomment-100754302.

[Nurdok]

I also lean toward the second example.

[srsudar]

Cool, that's the one we'll support out of the box. I'm also going to add a way to apply whatever you want to it, in case you really hate the default output. I'm adding a substitutions section to the egrc that lets you apply whatever regex-based substitutions you want. If you hate the 4-space indent, for example, you can add:

[substitutions]
remove_indent = [r'^    ', r'']

This would find all '^ ', which matches four spaces at the beginning of a line, and replace it with the empty string, removing indents.

The number of people that would kill to use this feature is probably small, but it will let people have a lot of say over how they want it displayed. It could even be used to extend or replace the default coloring mechanisms.

[srsudar]

This is implemented in the tip and will be included in the next release. If someone finds problems, let me know.