Re: [Patch] rcirc-color: Allow recoloring nicks

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Thuna <thuna.cing@gmail.com> writes:

> I think rcirc-color should allow a nick to be "recolored" with the
> command `/color nick', instead of signalling an error as it does now.
>
> This is useful, for example, when two similar nicks are assigned the
> same color but there's no specific color you want to reassign to either
> of them.
>
> I haven't tested the patch, but I can't see why it would fail.

It looks about right, but is random really the best we can do?  Would it
not be possible to try and find the most "distant" color to avoid
accidentally assigning similar colors to different names.

On the topic of rcirc-color, I had always assumed it would color all
nicks by default, not when manually selected.  There is /bright in IRC
by default.  It seems like it would be pretty easy to assign a random
color depending on the hash of the nickname.

> From 8bd21515f31a5e3cfedce623d8ebc9907b82b2a5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Thuna <thuna.cing@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2022 22:58:00 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] rcirc-color: Select a random color on `/color nick'
>
> * rcirc-color.el: When `/color' is called with a nick but no color,
> choose a random color from `rcirc-colors' instead of signalling an
> error.
> ---
>  rcirc-color.el | 12 ++++++++----
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/rcirc-color.el b/rcirc-color.el
> index 872d1d8298..0f6f2adea9 100644
> --- a/rcirc-color.el
> +++ b/rcirc-color.el
> @@ -136,7 +136,9 @@ NICK is the nick for which the new color ist set; if nil, all the
>  nicks in `rcirc-color-mapping' are shown with their corresponding
>  faces.
>  
> -COLOR is the color to use as the new foreground-color.
> +COLOR is the color to use as the new foreground-color.  If COLOR
> +is not supplied, a random color from `rcirc-colors' is used
> +instead.
>  
>  PROCESS and TARGET are the standard arguments for rcirc
>  commands."
> @@ -151,9 +153,11 @@ commands."
>                   rcirc-color-mapping)
>          (rcirc-print process (rcirc-nick process) "NOTICE" target
>                       (mapconcat 'identity names " ")))
> -    (unless color
> -      (error "Use what color?"))
> -    (puthash nick (cons 'foreground-color color) rcirc-color-mapping)))
> +    (puthash nick
> +             (cons 'foreground-color
> +                   (elt rcirc-colors
> +                        (random (length rcirc-colors))))
> +             rcirc-color-mapping)))
>  
>  (advice-add 'rcirc-handler-NICK :before #'rcirc-color--handler-NICK)
>  (defun rcirc-color--handler-NICK (_process sender args _text)