beet remove --delete should NOT default to "yes"

[milnak]

beet remove --delete albumartist:'miles' album:'porgy'
...
Really DELETE 15 files? (Yes/no/select)

I pressed enter here and it deleted the files! Seems like if it's going to warn about a destructive action, it should also default to NO, not YES.

[wisp3rwind]

Well, this is in a situation where you already explicitly specified --delete in the command line. I'm not sure we need to triple-check user intention here. Maybe it does make sense given that there's only one check after the list of affected files has been shown. What do others think?

[JOJ0]

I often delete files that way and to me it always was enough that I have one level of confirmation. I agree that it happens that pressing enter accidentally can be an issue. On the other hand with huge cleanup runs I was very happy that beets asks me wheter to delete and I only had to press enter and get through it quickly.

I think I'm fine with how it is right now, but to really make sure I would suggest to go back to a general view on "How does beets usually do it (in other places/plugins/commands)?"

[trapd00r]

I agree, it's good as it is. If you specify the flag, you should have the intent.

Also, the default action is capitalized, normal unix structure.

[milnak]

OP here. I still don't understand the arguments against this.

The arguments are "you specified "--delete" so you want to delete files" and "that's the unix way". So why then prompt at all? Why not just delete the files like rm (-f) does without a prompt?

[trapd00r]

Because there is no -f flag. In this scenario, your --delete is just rm, and rm asks when there is a reason to, unless -f :)

[milnak]

Fine..if the argument is that best should follow unix, there should be a --force flag. What does rm default to when enter is pressed without -f?

[JOJ0]

Hi all again, I suggest we all take a step back here and I'd like to resuggest that we should look in other places in Beets. I think it's more about consistency within beets than unix command style. I love and often follow unix cli practices when designing new Beets commands or refactoring old ones but I realized that that not always is what Beets needs.

[semohr]

Could we make the default selection bold or colored if the terminal supports it? I think typer does something similar if you enable rich formatting.

While looking at that example I did not know the default one is the capital one. Would be a lot more clear with single letters in my opinion e.g. [Y/n/s] or [y/N/s] or [y/n/S].

[JOJ0]

About consictency again: The modify command also defaults to yes:

Really modify and write tags? (Yes/no/select)

Making the default selection bold or colored is a good idea @semohr . We have color support, not with the rich package but we have tools somewhere in the beets UI packages. I didn't find a minute to look those up yet!