Configure what character is used to draw the ruler

[aspizu]

Instead of drawing a filled column, optionally
draw a column with the configured character.
This then could be set to a box-drawing character
to get a line as a ruler.

[archseer]

It's deliberately not a character so it doesn't obscure the text though

[aspizu]

this would be optional though

[dgkf]

I just wanted to chime in to say that I see the value here. I've been using TUI-based text editors for years and I still second-guess whether my ruler markings are the last column of my preferred width or the first column of overflow.

Using a box-drawing character helps make this less ambiguous.

But I also agree with @archseer that this loses some information, for example in cases where almost all lines overflow a ruler.

One alternative I had in mind would be to permit ranges in the ruler config. If 80 is a preferred linewidth, then this makes it more obvious that 81 is the start of a region of overflow, not the end of acceptable widths. The example below would use the ruler style for all columns >=81.

[editor]
rulers = [ 81.. ]

Granted, this isn't valid toml so the syntax would need to be workshopped.

What do you think @aspizu?

[aspizu]

[editor]
ruler-char = "⎸" # defaults to null which means draw bg color
rulers = [10, 20, 30] # rulers are rendered with ${ruler-char}
margin = 81 # col<=81 are rendered with bg color
# defaults to null which doesnt draw a margin

[dylangiles]

Howdy all, I have opened PR #9256 that adds this functionality using the config syntax @aspizu suggested. It is opt-in - if the config key is not provided the original behaviour for rulers is used

[codingjerk]

I've created PR #11798 to continue work started by @dylangiles (tyvm for the code)

It fixes some minor issues in original PR