annotate mercurial/help/pager.txt @ 32138:edbbd18a47ab stable

help: attempt to clarify that pager usage is not output length based

This may be too subtle of a change to get the point across, but when I first
read the original text, I thought maybe the pager would only be invoked if
writing more than a screenful.  The distinction between this and a pager that
simply exits after printing less than a screenful is important on Windows, given
the inability of `more` to color output.

Some Mercurial commands can produce a lot of output, and Mercurial will
attempt to use a pager to make those commands more pleasant.

To set the pager that should be used, set the application variable::

  [pager]
  pager = less -FRX

If no pager is set, Mercurial uses the environment variable
$PAGER. If neither pager.pager, nor $PAGER is set, a default pager
will be used, typically `less` on Unix and `more` on Windows.

.. container:: windows

  On Windows, `more` is not color aware, so using it effectively disables color.
  MSYS and Cygwin shells provide `less` as a pager, which can be configured to
  support ANSI color codes.  See :hg:`help config.color.pagermode` to configure
  the color mode when invoking a pager.

You can disable the pager for certain commands by adding them to the
pager.ignore list::

  [pager]
  ignore = version, help, update

To ignore global commands like :hg:`version` or :hg:`help`, you have
to specify them in your user configuration file.

To control whether the pager is used at all for an individual command,
you can use --pager=<value>:

  - use as needed: `auto`.
  - require the pager: `yes` or `on`.
  - suppress the pager: `no` or `off` (any unrecognized value
    will also work).

To globally turn off all attempts to use a pager, set::

  [ui]
  paginate = never

which will prevent the pager from running.