[vim/vim] auto nohlsearch (Issue #15039)
Maxim Kim
'hlsearch' is very useful but at the same time too intrusive.
Help topic states specifically that :nohlsearch doesn't work in autocommand (actually it also doesn't work in timer callbacks) so there is no obvious way to make it auto turned off.
There is vim-cool plugin by @romainl and the essense of it might be the following snippet I am currently using:
# turn off hlsearch after:
# - doing nothing for 'updatetime'
# - getting into insert mode
augroup auto_nohlsearch | au!
set updatetime=2000
noremap <Plug>(nohlsearch) <cmd>nohlsearch<cr>
noremap! <expr> <Plug>(nohlsearch) execute('nohlsearch')[-1]
au CursorHold * call feedkeys("\<Plug>(nohlsearch)", 'm')
au InsertEnter * call feedkeys("\<Plug>(nohlsearch)", 'm')
augroup END
Should we add this example, even though it is "hackish", to the help topic right after :h :nohlsearch or maybe even a simple plugin in the same way comment was added?
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Romain Lafourcade
The doc is riddled with "hackish" examples like this so why not one more? I find the idea of adding a small plugin better, though. MacVim releases are lagging a bit so I didn't have a chance to play with your commenting plugin yet but it definitely looks like the way to go.
FWIW, vim-cool was a pretty successful attempt to solve one of my pet peeves with hlsearch: that it lingers on after it stopped being relevant. Whether it is through a built-in plugin, a snippet in the doc, a third-party plugin, or in the core, the problem can be considered solved at this point and, as such, doesn't deserve much attention.
But that still leaves the other one: that the highlighting affects all windows, for which there is no workaround AFAIK. If some effort can be made to improve hlsearch, I think that's where it would be most useful.
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Christian Brabandt
There is an entry in todo.txt to make 'hlsearch' global/local option. I remember I spent some time several years ago looking into it (but at least back then it wasn't that simple, but I forgot details).
Regarding @habamax request, does it make sense to add this (and possibly also the highlight-yank implementation from the help page) into the vim-scripts library. Not sure if we would be littering the library and if this is a particular good idea or rather a bad one 🤷
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Maxim Kim
I am not sure about library (don't know the purpose of it) but having packadd autonohlsearch should be easy enough to use.
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Romain Lafourcade
(mostly for Neovim compatability)
Sigh…
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Christian Brabandt
alright then can you make this a real PR then please? Please don't forget a bit of documentation and also please leave adjusting 'updatetime' option value alone.
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Christian Brabandt
Closed #15039 as completed via 26de90c.
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girishji
I have something similar in my config, but I prefer 10 sec delay, and also have <esc> do nohls in addition. Maybe you can make the timeout configurable by using autocmd CursorHold * timer_start(timeout - &ut, (_) => feedkeys("\<plug>(nohlsearch)", 'm')).
I also prefer keeping highlights in insert mode as I replace some highlighted fragments (for instance).
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D. Ben Knoble
One other note: if hlsearch is made global/local, I’d prefer the default to stay as is (it’s remarkably useful when looking at commit diffs + an open buffer to quickly highlight long function names in all windows, for example).
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Maxim Kim
Maybe you can make the timeout configurable by using
autocmd CursorHold * timer_start(timeout - &ut, (_) => feedkeys("\<plug>(nohlsearch)", 'm')).
Wouldn't it trigger if after updatetime but before additional timeout there would be cursor movement? And what if at that time I will search for another thing? Say if there is 6 seconds of additional timeout, I theoretically can do another search which would be "unhighlighted" almost right away. Not sure though.
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