[help] How can I force to show output at top of the terminal?

[avatar-lavventura]

When I pipe into delta it shows the output bottom of the terminal instead of showing it top of the page.

Example output:

When I press to n it is corrected as:

By defualt is it possible to force delta to show its output at top of the terminal?

[dandavison]

Hi there, it's actually the pager less that is responsible for this behaviour, not delta. Here's what you need to do:

1. Work out the exact command-line flags that you want to pass to less to get the behaviour you want. For example, you could use a command like this:

yes | head -n 2 | LESS= less <your command line flags here>

2. Make sure that delta is using those flags when invoking less. Unfortunately there are various ways of doing this. Let's suppose you want -FRS. you can store them in the LESS env var: export LESS=-FRS or you can set an env var: export DELTA_PAGER='less -FRS, or you can even use the delta --pager='less -FRS' command or use pager = less -FRS in the [delta] section of your gitconfig.

Sorry there are so many ways; I promise there is a reason for each one!

[avatar-lavventura]

No need to sorry :) I have tried: yes | head -n 2 | delta --pager='less -r +A' and it worked like charm.

[scanny]

I found that delta --pager='less -c' did the trick for me.

In less parlance of "screen repaints", -c or --clear-screen "Causes full screen repaints to be painted from the top line down. By default, full screen repaints are done by scrolling from the bottom of the screen."

Using the alternate buffer, as I do, is a "full-screen repaint".

I prefer this behavior for git diffs because my eyes are used to scanning from the top of the screen on diffs, so always having them start there prevents a "flow-interruption" when my eyes automatically look there, don't find anything, and have to scan downward.