Enabling per-buffer or per-filetype

[kballenegger]

I'd like to have indent-guides only enabled for certain filetypes (those with significant whitespace). Right now, my configuration looks like this:

" indent-guide
let g:indent_guides_auto_colors = 0
hi clear IndentGuidesOdd
hi IndentGuidesEven ctermbg=235

autocmd FileType coffeescript :IndentGuidesEnable
autocmd FileType sass         :IndentGuidesEnable
autocmd FileType haml         :IndentGuidesEnable
autocmd FileType python       :IndentGuidesEnable

The problem is that indent-guides is enabled or disabled globally, and not per buffer, and refresh on buffer enter. Two potential solutions:

1. Let indent-guide be enabled per-buffer, not globally. (This makes more sense to me anyway.) Then I can have the right autocmd set up for my use case.
2. Let us specify a filetype inclusion whitelist, not an exclusion blacklist. I can't list every every file type I may ever want to edit with vim; but it's easy to list the ones I might want guides on.

[kballenegger]

Is anybody interested in pointing me in the right direction for building this myself?

[davidosomething]

Can't you use bufenter and bufleave instead of filetype

[kballenegger]

It doesn't really make a difference. The IndentGuideEnable command is global, it enables it for all buffers.

[kballenegger]

Is this issue dead? This is still very much a problem for me day-to-day :(.

[Ron89]

I think what @davidosomething mean is that you can setup BufEnter and BufLeave for your filetype that needs indent guide as a workaround. For example, if I want it ON only for Python:

augroup filetype_python
    autocmd!
    ...
    autocmd BufEnter * if &ft ==# 'python' | IndentGuidesEnable  | endif
    autocmd BufLeave * if &ft ==# 'python' | IndentGuidesDisable | endif
augroup END

So That the IndentGuide settings can be mostly confined to the active buffer's.

But I agree, this solution is cumbersome. And it looks weired when opening a buffer supposedly using IndentGuide and one not so side-by-side with split.

Is there any plan on making a alternative as @kballenegger suggested? It's a sensible request to me.

[nathanaelkane]

@Ron89 that looks similar to the indent_guides_exclude_filetypes option.

I don't mind the idea of the filetype whitelist behaviour that @kballenegger suggested, but I think it'd have to be a new option.

[Ron89]

g:indent_guides_exclude_filetypes works fine for my need. Sorry for not being able to spot it myself in the documentation.

[nathanaelkane]

Please re-open if indent_guides_exclude_filetypes isn't sufficient.

[kballenegger]

Not sure how to re-open this, but I don't find indent_guides_exclude_filetypes to be sufficient. It's unreasonable to list every possible filetype in a blacklist when all you're looking is to enable it purely for a single filetype. That was mentioned in the original issue text as a suggestion:

Let us specify a filetype inclusion whitelist, not an exclusion blacklist. I can't list every every file type I may ever want to edit with vim; but it's easy to list the ones I might want guides on.

[tshirtman]

Same here, i used BufEnter/BufLeave to toggle it, but when you have splits, going from one split to another disable it for the first split, would be better to enable it by filetype.

[rockandska]

A little bit old but I had similar needs as you @tshirtman / @kballenegger , i just pushed a PR who seems to satisfy my needs and think it should satisfy yours too.

Could you please confirm if it is the case ?

Regards,