[bug-grep] [bugs #12019] Feature: alternative color for context lines

[Charles Levert]

Follow-up Comment #5, bugs #12019 (project grep):

<<<But it occurred to me that it would help if non-matching lines preceding
matching lines are colored differently than non-matching lines following
matching lines.>>>

What about middle non-matching lines between two matching lines so close to
one another that everything stays in one chunk?  Introducing a third
non-matching-line color for this situation would necessitate new logic solely
for identifying it in grep, and that crosses the too-much-bloat limit.  (The
only color that actually required new logic was the first one that's already
in stable releases, that for matching text; everything else was already well
identified in the code and was just waiting to be colorized.)  This
proposition does not seem practical to me.  Besides, our brain can readily
tell if something comes before or after a match; it doesn't need different
colors for that very specific information (beyond having already used
colorizing to set non-matching lines apart).

<<<it seems the only case when text would be unreadable on an XTerm...>>>

I have tried your proposed settings on different terminals.  On my xterm,
bold white (37;1) on default white background is still two identical colors. 
On my Linux console, bold black (30;1) on default black background is also two
identical colors.  Maybe we don't have the same versions of xterm or the same
hardware for text consoles, but I can't be alone with the ones I have, so
both these proposed bold colors are not acceptable as default foregrounds to
use in GREP_COLORS.

As I stated before, my personal taste (and it's only that) tells me that
setting a background for something does not make it look understated when
it's supposed to.  Remember that the remaining columns after the end of the
actual file content for a non-matching line will still be in the default
background.

I prefer leaving this choice up to the user.


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