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0 pointsda39a3ee5y ago0 comments

> `bat` is one of the examples of when 256 and true colour shouldn't be used. [...] I found I couldn't always use it with my accessibility themes turned on and configuring it to work on different terminals and on different machines got tiresome enough that it no longer became a productive tool.

I believe that all your complaints would be solved if you set the env var

  BAT_THEME=base16

right? (Or indeed ansi-light or ansi-dark; none of those themes use hard-coded colors).

> Asking for accessibility in productivity tools is not mounting "a high horse"

Can you see my confusion though. Look again at your language (and your italics):

> `bat` is one of the examples of when 256 and true colour shouldn't be used.

You appear to be not asking for accessibility but saying that bat shouldn't support color themes that make use of 256 colors. And that is where you are transitioning from perfectly reasonable to perfectly unreasonable :) It's not up to you how other people use their terminal. If they like using more than 16 colors then that is perfectly alright and none of your business.

As I mentioned above, that transition from asking for (even "demanding" would be fine) accessibility to cutting off other people's noses to spite their faces is where accessibility concerns have unfortunately led to terrible vandalism: the removal of thousands of hours of video lectures from the internet by UC Berkeley.

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hnlmorg5y ago

> I believe that all your complaints would be solved if you set the env var

And then you have two problems...and program that, by default, doesn't respect the terminal defaults and an env var you now need to replicate across every environment you use that tool on.

> Can you see my confusion though

No, I can't. I've been really clear right from the outset.

> You appear to be not asking for accessibility but saying that bat shouldn't support color themes that make use of 256 colors.

Exactly. Using terminal defaults is better for accessibility. I mean I have no issues with tools optionally supporting 256 or true colours, but don't make that the detault.

> It's not up to you how other people use their terminal

Exactly. Hence why developers should write tools that respect other peoples terminal defaults. If they use 256 or true colours then they're dictating how other people should use their terminals.

> If they like using more than 16 colors then that is perfectly alright and none of your business.

So support it as an optional extra. Just don't make it the default -- instead respect the other peoples terminal preferences by using the terminal defaults.

> accessibility concerns have unfortunately led to terrible vandalism: the removal of thousands of hours of video lectures from the internet by UC Berkeley.

That's a ridiculous edge case and has nothing what-so-ever to do with my polite request. I'm not asking people to remove content, just to respect peoples terminal defaults.

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