Highlighting current window

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi list,

I was looking for ways to make the focused window clearer. The best
way would probably a slightly lighter background.

However, I couldn't find any hooks to easily do that. I was expecting
something along the lines of `window-leave-hook' and
`window-focus-hook' but I couldn't find anything similar.

The best suggestion that the IRC people came up with is to use
`post-command-hook' and match `switch-buffer', but that sounds a bit
ugly. Is there a better way?

--
Francesco * Often in error, never in doubt

[Drew Adams]

> I was looking for ways to make the focused window clearer. The best
> way would probably a slightly lighter background.
>
> However, I couldn't find any hooks to easily do that. I was expecting
> something along the lines of `window-leave-hook' and
> `window-focus-hook' but I couldn't find anything similar.
>
> The best suggestion that the IRC people came up with is to use
> `post-command-hook' and match `switch-buffer', but that sounds a bit
> ugly. Is there a better way?

Typically folks just look at the mode line to tell which window is selected.
Can you get by by customizing faces `mode-line' and `mode-line-inactive', making
the former something that stands out for you?

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi Drew, thanks for your answer.

At Sat, 30 Jun 2012 11:23:50 -0700,

Drew Adams wrote:
> Typically folks just look at the mode line to tell which window is selected.
> Can you get by by customizing faces `mode-line' and `mode-line-inactive', making
> the former something that stands out for you?

Yes, I am aware of that. However I often find myself not being sure
about what is focused, so I think that some more visual aid would
help.

[Christopher Grubert]

I use a combination of the three faces mode-line, mode-line-inactive,
mode-line-buffer-id and the hl-line+ package which gives current line
highlighting but only in the active window. I've found this combination
to work pretty well for me. I also use a fairly innocuous line
highlighting color (:background "#222") so that it doesn't really
conflict with any other fontification colors, but still draws attention
to where I am. It draws your attention to the exact line you're on as
opposed to just the window you're in, but I've found that useful.
Chris.

[Drew Adams]

> I use ... the hl-line+ package which gives current line
> highlighting but only in the active window....

> I also use a fairly innocuous line highlighting color

> (:background "#222") so that it doesn't really conflict...,

> but still draws attention to where I am. It draws your
> attention to the exact line you're on as opposed to just
> the window you're in, but I've found that useful.

Thanks for mentioning hl-line+, Chris. There is also crosshairs.el, which
extends hl-line+ by adding a vertical line through point. So it is easy to see
where the cursor is (e.g. when you move your attention to another window).
Typically you use the crosshairs display temporarily.

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CrosshairHighlighting

[Christopher Grubert]

Yes, I use that as well. I've found that it is slow to refresh and
creates a flickering effect when typing so I have it bound to a function
key and don't normally leave it turned on. It is useful at times when
you want to see where you are in relation to some location on another
line (typically when setting up rectangular operations). I didn't
mention it here because I don't leave it on and use it to identify point
like I do with hl-line which is what the OP was after, but yes, it's a
nice complementary package.
Chris.

[Michael Heerdegen]

"Drew Adams" <drew....@oracle.com> writes:

> There is also crosshairs.el, which extends hl-line+ by adding a
> vertical line through point. So it is easy to see where the cursor is
> (e.g. when you move your attention to another window). Typically you
> use the crosshairs display temporarily.
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CrosshairHighlighting

This indeed works very well for this purpose. You see which window is
selected, as well as the position of point in that window at the same
time.

I use a setup like the following (just as an example):


--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(add-hook ;flash selected window when changing window config
'window-size-change-functions
#'(lambda (_)
(when
(memq last-command
'(split-window-vertically
split-window-horizontally
delete-window icicle-delete-window
delete-other-windows))
(crosshairs-flash))))

(global-set-key [S-next]
(lambda () (interactive)
(other-window 1) (crosshairs-flash)))
(global-set-key [S-prior]
(lambda () (interactive)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


Michael.

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi Christopher,
At Sat, 30 Jun 2012 16:16:21 -0400,

Christopher Grubert wrote:
> I use a combination of the three faces mode-line, mode-line-inactive,
> mode-line-buffer-id and the hl-line+ package which gives current line
> highlighting but only in the active window. I've found this combination

> to work pretty well for me. I also use a fairly innocuous line

> highlighting color (:background "#222") so that it doesn't really

> conflict with any other fontification colors, but still draws attention

> to where I am. It draws your attention to the exact line you're on as
> opposed to just the window you're in, but I've found that useful.

> Chris.

I looked at hl-line mode and it supports that functionality as well. I
looked at the source and the trick is using overlays. Knowing that, I
was able to do what I want quite quickly:

----------------8<-------------------------------

;;; Darker background for current buffer
(set-face-attribute 'default nil :background "#1e1e1e")
(set-cursor-color "#ffffff")

(defvar current-buffer-backround-overlay
nil)

(defun darken-current-buffer-background ()
(unless (window-minibuffer-p (selected-window))
(unless current-buffer-backround-overlay
(setq current-buffer-backround-overlay (make-overlay 1 1))
(overlay-put current-buffer-backround-overlay 'face '(:background "black")))
(overlay-put current-buffer-backround-overlay 'window
(selected-window))
(move-overlay current-buffer-backround-overlay
(point-min) (point-max))))

(defun undarken-current-buffer-background ()
(when darken-current-buffer-background
(delete-overlay current-buffer-backround-overlay)))

(add-hook 'pre-command-hook #'undarken-current-buffer-background)
(add-hook 'post-command-hook #'darken-current-buffer-background)

---------------->8-------------------------------

However, I think that using hl-line might be an even better solution,
I'll try both a bit and see what I prefer.

[Le Wang]

Martin,

Sorry about the last message which didn't cc the group.

On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 5:06 PM, martin rudalics <ruda...@gmx.at> wrote:

I attach an old version which can run into a problem I forgot about.
There's a better way to provide whole-window overlays for Emacs 24.1 but
I didn't implement them yet.  If you use Emacs 24, I can look into this.

This seems cool.  Can you elaborate on the "better way" in 24?
 

martin

--
Le

[martin rudalics]

> Can you elaborate on the "better way" in 24?

The basic problem we have to solve is how to extend the window
background to the entire window and not only to the last buffer
position. That's inherently what the after-string property of the
hiselwin overlay accomplishes.

Emacs 24.1 offers a better solution following the discussion of

bug#11068: 24.0.94; Face-remapped background does not extend to end of window

which you can find here:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2012-03/msg00569.html

The solution has one drawback wrt to highlighting the selected window:
When the same buffer appears in the selected window _and_ in another
window, that other window will be highlighted too.

The solution is similar to the one proposed by Francesco Mazzoli: Show
the overlay only in the current buffer and give it a 'window property to
show it only in the selected window.

martin