Re: file coloring

["bulia byak" <bulia dr com>]

> I have to agree with Andrew - "extension" is a foreign word on UNIX.  
> (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/mc/2002-October/msg00102.html)
> Some users don't understand this word, as the above paragraph shows.

Sorry I could not understand how this relates to the proposed patch. 
 
> Having this support in the sources will result in "contributors" with
> DOS/Windows background flooding mailing lists with patches to "highlight"  
> their favorite extensions ("please make *.mp3 green!").

This is something I can understand even less. The proposed patch allows to color file types by editing a 
config file, or through a dialog at runtime. So the result would be the opposite - no more patches, never. 
Everyone is able to define their own extensions and colors without recompiling. What is wrong with this?

>  And we only have
> 16 colors, some (most!) of which are already taken (black - pipe, magenta
> - device, green - executable, red - core etc).

Oh my, it never occurred to me that 4 is "most!" of 16. As for me, I define 15 (out of the available 16) 
extension groups and use all available colors for them, even if some groups have to share colors. This is not 
a problem perceptually, because different file types tend to occur in different "contexts", so each typical 
directory (e.g. one with .c, .h .o files, or another with .tex, .sty, .dvi files) still has its own unique 
color palette, and one color participating in different palettes is perceived differently (this is a well 
known psychological fact). So, although I would of course prefer to have more than 16 colors, the current 
system still proved to be very intuitive and convenient.

Well, of course I'm not going to try to persuade the developers that this is good, if they are so determined 
otherwise. I'm just sharing my experience. If anyone is interested, please write to me and I will share the 
patch.

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