"git gud explain": Do not accept user input other than ENTER

[benthayer]

Go to util/level_builder.py in the function BasicLevel.explain() to fix this.

Basically git gud explain waits for the user to hit enter, but they can also type anything they want because we use input and not something more advanced. This could mess up input or simply make it more confusing for a user, with them possibly thinking they're typing into a command line.

[vmdhhh]

@benthayer We could also start with giving a small text saying something like "Press Enter"
and also take care of the user input with few more steps
What do you think ?

[benthayer]

Hello @vmdhhh , thanks for commenting!

We do already have something like what you said to tell the user to be pressing enter, so I think you have the right idea. You can see here in the third level of the introduction (intro init), we have the user run git gud explain and then they see this:

Before learning about Git repos, hit enter
>>> (1/9)
Explanations are broken up into multiple chunks to make it easier to read.
>>> (2/9)
Hitting enter will get you to the next part of the explanation
>>> (3/9)
...

Was that in line with what you were thinking?

Beyond that, it's just about making sure that if someone types a character other than enter, it doesn't get displayed

[benthayer]

@vmdhhh Feel free to handle this one too: #333

[vmdhhh]

@benthayer Did you already take care of this?
Because now I see that the typed text is getting replaced.

[benthayer]

Yeah, I've worked on this, but users shouldn't be able to type at all because it's confusing for the people who aren't familiar with the command line and think the line they're seeing is where they type out commands. So, when they hit enter, the command disappears and they don't know what happened.

The current behavior exists so that when a user hits enter, that enter is removed and we start print()ing on that line. We need the extra newline because after the final explanation block, the command line is displayed and offsets our output by one line

[vmdhhh]

I am able to implement this using the keyboard package with a minor problem.
Problem: If the user types something instead of enter while the explain is running, it's getting displayed on the terminal after the program terminates.
I have attached an image for reference. Sorry for the bad image edit :(

@benthayer Do you have any idea how to tackle this?

[benthayer]

Hi @vmdhhh

I know that this behavior is common when a program doesn't accept stdin. Sometimes when I open a terminal and before the command line shows up, I can type in characters that end up displayed on the command line like you have in that picture. I think this happens whenever a program doesn't read from stdin. If you read the characters, they could possibly get removed from stdin and wouldn't show up on the command line after execution is done. If the characters still show up, you could maybe use some control characters to remove them, but then you still might be able to see the typed characters for a short while.

I hope this helps. If you want, you can make a pull request and I can take a look at your code too

[vmdhhh]

Hi @benthayer
I've created a PR #336 . Please take a look.