Help with deadcolumn.nvim

[shyun3]

Hello, I'm trying to use vimade with deadcolumn.nvim but I'm finding that the colorcolumn always gets reset to normal when vimade fades the window. Moreover, deadcolumn does not seem to work properly after this happens. It's like all of its highlighting functionality gets disabled.

I've tried adding a blocklist rule for the ColorColumn highlight group but it seems to have no effect. Could anyone help with configuring vimade so that it doesn't touch the colorcolumn? Or should I ask about this on the deadcolumn end?

[TaDaa]

Hi @shyun3, thank you for raising the issue.

Can you try removing the blocklist rules and then adding this to either your vimrc or init.lua:

• vimrc: hi! ColorColumn NONE
• init.lua: vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'ColorColumn', {})

I suspect its a namespace mapping issue. https://github.com/Bekaboo/deadcolumn.nvim/blob/92c86f10bfba2717ca2280e2e759b047135d5288/lua/deadcolumn.lua#L63 sets winhl=ColorColumn:. I haven't seen winhl used this way before (nor is it mentioned in the docs), but this actually creates an anonymous namespace with a single cleared highlight. Cleared highlights are a bit tricky in namespaces, they are supposed to use their global (ns=0) colors (ColorColumn in this case), but somehow here its behaving differently and treating the color as a globally cleared highlight (maybe an edge case in winhl that needs to be handled). I suspect things start to get out of sync as vimade swaps the window namespace. Clearing ColorColumn in the global ns should ensure it stays in sync.

[shyun3]

Sure, here's my repro.lua:

local root = vim.fn.fnamemodify("./.repro", ":p")

-- set stdpaths to use .repro
for _, name in ipairs({ "config", "data", "state", "cache" }) do
  vim.env[("XDG_%s_HOME"):format(name:upper())] = root .. "/" .. name
end

-- bootstrap lazy
local lazypath = root .. "/plugins/lazy.nvim"
if not vim.loop.fs_stat(lazypath) then
  vim.fn.system({
    "git",
    "clone",
    "--filter=blob:none",
    "--single-branch",
    "https://github.com/folke/lazy.nvim.git",
    lazypath,
  })
end
vim.opt.runtimepath:prepend(lazypath)

-- install plugins
local plugins = {
  "tadaa/vimade",
  "Bekaboo/deadcolumn.nvim",
}
require("lazy").setup(plugins, {
  root = root .. "/plugins",
})

vim.opt.termguicolors = true
vim.o.colorcolumn = "10" -- Deliberately low for easier testing

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run nvim -u repro.lua. This will create a .repro directory.
2. Note how there is no colorcolumn. By default, deadcolumn will only show it in insert mode and will gradually brighten it as the cursor gets closer to the set value. Confirm this works by typing out a few characters:
   
3. Exit insert mode and run :h to launch another buffer. Focus moves to the help file and the original buffer has been faded. In the faded buffer, the colorcolumn has been populated even though we are not in insert mode.
4. Switch to the buffer using <C-w><C-w> to get a better look:
   
   Note how the colorcolumn is now also showing in the help buffer that was just left.
5. Try entering insert mode and type/delete things. deadcolumn's functionality no longer seems to be working.

Running WSL Ubuntu 24.04.3 with Neovim version:

NVIM v0.12.0-dev-2260+g6b4ec2264e
Build type: RelWithDebInfo
LuaJIT 2.1.1767980792
Run "nvim -V1 -v" for more info

[TaDaa]

ah great ty - yeah seems like neovim v0.12.0-dev latest breaks the ability to give precedence back to winhl when unsetting the highlight namespace back to the global...will see if there is a workaround, but seems like a neovim bug atm

--- edit ---

looks to have been introduced in v0.11.0 release

[TaDaa]

Filed #37865

[TaDaa]

short term fix, if you don't have any other plugins that need window namespaces besides deadcolumn.nvim, you can
try and use the namespace branch here: https://github.com/TaDaa/deadcolumn.nvim/tree/namespace

For a better fix, I'm going to look at supporting functionality that deadcolumn.nvim provides as just a component interface in this plugin (components have been on my list todo for a while), but basically it'll mean you can specify something similar to recipes but control a tinier dynamic piece of highlighting. To clarify, this isn't intended to replace other plugins; rather vimade is already structured to handle dynamic highlights like this natively so it should be very natural to turn something like this into a component e.g.:

opts = {
components = {
{'colorcolumn', {
  exceeded_color = {r,g,b},
  show_per_line = false,
  ...
}}
}
}

I'll look into adding support for this sometime this week (hopefully this weekend)

[shyun3]

Filed #37865

It looks like this has been fixed and is available in the latest nightly. However, the deadcolumn issue is still occurring for me. Maybe I misunderstood, but does this mean the problem is with the plugin itself?

[TaDaa]

hmmm the latest release download for 0.12 with that fix and step 5 works for me. Is that step still broken for you?

step 4 is still broken (and expected) due to the winhl=ColorColumn: usage, which is essentially clearing the ColorColumn highlight in an anonymous namespace. In order to fix that part it should just require clearing ColorColumn in the global_ns:

hi! clear ColorColumn

or

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'ColorColumn', {})

[shyun3]

Whoops, posted from the wrong account. Here it is again:

Ok, step 5 is working. I guess I was still surprised by step 4. Your fix also works but it seems like it needs to be applied after vimade's fade takes place, otherwise the color of the column displayed by deadcolumn becomes very bright. Still, it should be possible to include this workaround in anyone's config.

Thanks for all your help!