ftplugin/man.vim: Hide signcolumn to avoid "embarrassing line wrap" #28775
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Also, change placement of `setlocal` commands to improve logical structure: - move 'colorcolumn' and 'nolist' to the group of other uncommented visual-representation-related options at the beginning - move 'nofoldenable' inside if-else construction to keep relevant instructions together
This is to address situation when user has set 'signcolumn=yes' (always show) in global configuration, so they see a rudimentary empty column, which breaks the text flow in man pages. In default configuration there is no |signs| in man pages anyway, so 'signcolumn=auto' should behave like 'signcolumn=no' (hiding the empty column). It still allows to detect an "unusual" situation, just in case some advanced users do set some |signs| in man pages.
| setlocal foldcolumn=0 colorcolumn=0 nolist nofoldenable | ||
| " man page content is likely preformatted for the terminal width, so | ||
| " narrowing display by any additional columns leads to Embarrassing Line Wrap | ||
| setlocal nonumber norelativenumber foldcolumn=0 signcolumn=auto |
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disabling random things is not ideal. instead, find where the width (MANWIDTH, iirc) is calculated in this plugin, and adjust it
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I don't think MANWIDTH is controlled by plugin when calling man from CLI. Personally, I have MANPAGER set in my environment as described in :help man, and just call man echo in bash (see steps to reproduce).
Note, that this PR only adds signcolumn=auto (may be easier to see when viewing separate commits). Other "random things" (visual columns occupied by editor's UI, to be precise) are already disabled. Suggested changes follow the existing approach and improve it (I believe), not aiming to seek for ideal.
If someone decide to spend time finding an "ideal" solution, they could still benefit from these changes by using them as a reference. E. g. just like they will see "nonumber", "norelativenumber", "foldcolumn" and include the width of these columns into their calculations of MANWIDTH (or whatever is relevant), they will also see the "signcolumn" and remember to take it into account as well.
Also, IMHO, benefits of what you call an "ideal" approach are questionable. ftplugins are specifically intended to improve user experience with specific filetypes by taking into account the meaning of the file type. Disabling/enabling specific things for specific filetypes feels totally reasonable for me. Do you think that other setlocal options are not ideal should be avoided in this ftplugin (e. g. nolist)?
This is how man page looks like when using neovim as a man pager and having
signcolumn=yes:Note: I did not resize the window after running the command.
Steps to reproduce:
set signcolumn=yesin your~/.config/nvim/init.vimMANPAGER='nvim +Man!' man manThe suggested solution is to
set signcolumn=autoinftplugin/man.vim, because man pages are especially sensitive to terminal width.manhard-wraps content by default, not taking pager's UI into account.ftplugin/man.vimalready contains similar options, e.g.set nonumber