Skin's history char is not used everywhere

[egmontkob]

Is there an existing request for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Is your feature request related to a problem?

The character defined in the skin file as [widget-panel] -> history-show-list-char is used at the top-right of both panels (panel directory history).

However, it is not used on the right side of the command line (command history), in the Copy dialog (history of the source and destination fields) and probably quite a few places. The default [^] is shown at these places.

Describe the solution you'd like

history-show-list-char should be used for all kinds of histories.

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

Interestingly, the online skin viewer shows the custom history-show-list-char at all these places. Did it use to work and broke at some point?? Did someone go ahead and implement this feature manually in the skin viewer but not in actual mc?? Was it part of a proposed change that somehow got stalled and did not land in mc?? I don't know :)

[zyv]

Interestingly, the online skin viewer shows the custom history-show-list-char at all these places. Did it use to work and broke at some point?? Did someone go ahead and implement this feature manually in the skin viewer but not in actual mc?? Was it part of a proposed change that somehow got stalled and did not land in mc?? I don't know :)

Yes, that was me :) I didn't realize that it doesn't work in mc proper.

[egmontkob]

Fair enough. Anyway, I filed it here rather than to the skin viewer, because I believe the preferred solution is to modify mc :)

[zyv]

Fair enough. Anyway, I filed it here rather than to the skin viewer, because I believe the preferred solution is to modify mc :)

Sure :)

[egmontkob]

The leftover ^ chars come from lib/widget/input.c draw_history_button().

However, based on some circumstance yet unclear to me, it's one of ^, v or |. The latter two don't even have skinnable counterparts.

Or is this something we could remove? After all, the sign to open the history box probably shouldn't depend on where we are in that history.

Could this be a leftover or copy-paste error from the history box's scrollbar (which also has hardcoded, non-skinnable ^, v and |, even despite fancy Unicode characters being defined in the skin's [widget-scrollbar])?

How do I even get to see these v or | symbols for opening a history dialog?

Anyway, I can't just blindly fix this issue without more thoroughly understanding what's going on. :(

[mc-worker]

How do I even get to see these v or | symbols for opening a history dialog?

These symbols show you position in the history when you populate an input line from its history using CK_Next/CK_Prev commands (alt-n/alt-p keys respectively). ^ when you're on top, v when you're on bottom, | when you're somewhere between top and bottom.

[egmontkob]

I see.

What would be the desired design, then?

Split history-show-list-char to history-show-list-{top,middle,bottom}-char?

Some skins have already themed the up-looking default ASCII ^ to a down-looking Unicode ↓, ⇊ or ▾.

I guess for the history of input boxes (where Alt-N / Alt-P are available) we'd want to preserve the direction of the arrow.

But if we do that then we'd swap the arrow of the panel directory history dropdown. Or if we hack the code to make an exception there and use the other direction there then the default ASCII would change from ^ to v.

Or split the skin property to 4, i.e. leave it as-is and introduce 3 new characters from the input boxes' history?

[egmontkob]

In the Copy dialog:

For the "source" input box, the history (if clicked on ^) visually opens upwards, the last entry is highlighted. Moving up corresponds to Alt-P if I didn't open this box.

For the "to" input box, the history (if clicked on ^) visually opens downwards, the first entry is highlighted. Moving down corresponds to Alt-P if I didn't open this box -- pretty confusing.