Stream: ideas

Topic: visual distinction warnings vs errors

Anton (Jun 05 2023 at 16:04):

I just noticed we have no visual distinction between warnings and errors:
warnings-vs-errors.png

Anton (Jun 05 2023 at 16:04):

I think they should be easily distinguishable.

Anton (Jun 05 2023 at 16:04):

I'm not sure how though, suggestions?

Brendan Hansknecht (Jun 05 2023 at 16:27):

Interesting. Looking at that, it seems if there are any errors, we only print those

Brendan Hansknecht (Jun 05 2023 at 16:28):

But yeah, not distinct

Johan Lövgren (Jun 05 2023 at 17:06):

I can imagine many different ways… Typically I would assume one wants the errors to be more eye catching than the warnings. One example is to have each row of the error message start with a symbol like > to create a vertical border.

Johan Lövgren (Jun 05 2023 at 17:11):

Or make the vertical border a bit more striking for errors:
XX Unrecognized Name XXXXXXXXXXXXX

ERROR Unrecognized Name ERRORERRORERRORERRORERR

————————- ERROR ————————
— Unrecognized Name ————————-

Johan Lövgren (Jun 05 2023 at 17:13):

Probably the simplest though:
— ERROR: Unrecognized Name ———————

With a similar adjustment for warnings

Ayaz Hafiz (Jun 05 2023 at 17:20):

I like the ERROR/WARNING header (maybe E/W if it needs succinctness), and also different colors for the headers (red for warning, yellow for warning)

Anton (Jun 05 2023 at 17:27):

Uhu, given how often you're going to see it, I would also like something succinct with a bit of color.

Bryce Miller (Jun 05 2023 at 17:31):

Maybe some emojis too if we want more differentiation?
Warning :warning:️
Error :siren:

Anton (Jun 05 2023 at 17:34):

I've thought about emoji as well, but they're a bit too attention grabbing, given how the error/warning indication is not the most important part of the message.

Bryce Miller (Jun 05 2023 at 17:35):

Fair

Richard Feldman (Jun 05 2023 at 17:36):

Brendan Hansknecht said:

Interesting. Looking at that, it seems if there are any errors, we only print those

oh yeah, this was an intentional choice; it used to be that you'd get a ton of like "unused" warnings and things that just got in the way of the errors that were the things I really wanted to focus on. it was annoying :sweat_smile:

Johan Lövgren (Jun 05 2023 at 18:40):

I remember using a Haskell compiler flag which reversed the order of errors. Really useful as usually you want to correct the first error first, but this then requires scrolling upwards an indeterminate length

Last updated: Jun 16 2026 at 16:19 UTC