[needed] Render ANSI-coded colors in pager mode.

[c4lliope]

In theory, a pager can handle ANSI color codes - although nearly all of them give up on the problem before trying. My most common pager use-case is glancing through --help guides, usually for a Nushell command. Like all of Nushell, the colors are baked in for ease of use. I usually need to run command --help | ansi strip | hx to make any sense of a command using helix as a pager.

Only... why is that so desirable? If the colors are there, use them!

Another case that comes up so so so much, is caused by mixing Zellij and Helix; Zellij is a hypermodern tmux replacement, and has a quick keybind for opening your scrollback inside your editor. Once again, doing so clobbers any colors your console may be displaying.

---

No one says this is easy or simple! ANSI is gnarly and always has been. Same could be said of syntax highlighting, demanding the tree-sitter dependency as the only pleasant approach.

Could we have anyone close enough to the problem sound off on possible mechanisms to accomplish this? I see the procedure as being:

• Recognize when the editor is displaying a buffer of plain/ansi
• Add a tree-sitter grammar capable of assigning ANSI marks into a syntax tree.
• Apply a colorscheme designed around the ANSI spec, & relying on the console's chosen colors.
• As the buffer is rendered, hide each ANSI mark (remember copy/paste concerns!)

Hope I can learn more in the process.

[c4lliope]

Similar: #12134

[pascalkuthe]

Helix is nit a pager and doesn't really intend to be one. Also it's conventional that programs disable ANSi escape sequences if they are piped so that seems like an issue with the prgroamms you are using.

[c4lliope]

Ah, maybe we should disregard the label of pager then. I am simply referencing that helix can replace common pager programs, by taking over the use case where someone pipes to a running buffer.

In any case, helix is far more useful than any pager programs I use (copy/paste alone is enough), so I use helix in all of those cases.

So, should helix honor ANSI color codes when rendering piped input? Doing so may place helix leagues ahead of all other options, and really tighten up the modern console experience.

I keep looking for rough edges in my console, and this colorblind mode really feels like being thrown back into vi or nano. Plus, i need to re-run commands and manually disengage ansi - cumbersome on all sides.