Columns unreasonably sized when you open a repository
Steps to reproduce:
- Open some repository (to be sure to reproduce, pick one that has some commit with a very long message)
- Manually modify column widths in the commit history pane
- Open another repository
Expected
At step 1, the width of the columns out of the box should be reasonable. While i understand that there's no set of sizes that will be perfect for all screen sizes and for everybody's taste, I do expect it to be reasonable. If my window is big enough, all columns should initially fit inside the total width without a horizontal scroll bar, and their relative sizes should be something reasonable. For example, columns like "Phase" or "Local time" have contents whose width is easily predictable, the "Description" column should be the widest, etc. It's not that difficult to have a starting configuration that will work in most cases.
At step 3, the newly open repository should initially have the columns arranged exactly like the ones in the previos repository that I adjusted manually. While I don't expect my changes to apply to already open tabs, it's certainly reasonable to expect that new tabs that I'll open will inherit the same arrangement for the columns
Observed
At step 1: the width of columns appear to be utterly random, especially that of Description column, often so insanely wide that the total width of all columns exceed the width of the window and a horizontal scroll bar appears. So, in order to be able to see the last columns (in my case author, date/time and phase), I need to scroll to the right, and then manually adjust column widths before I start working.
Now I have just found out that it's not actually random. What happens is the Description column width is dictated by the longest commit message (i.e. description) in the whole history (even if that's far down in the history).
That's not a sensible default. It's far better to have all columns visible by default, and the description truncated (and then I'll resize the columns manually if I'm not happy with that), than to have the rightmost columns outside the window and force me to do a lot of work just to see the most basic stuff, only for the sake of accomodating the exceptionally long descriptions that are not even within the vertical scroll range to begin with.
Then whenever I open a new repository, it will again start with column widths dictated by the same algorithm, while it would be better to have new tabs inherit the arrangement of the last used tab.