NonGNU ELPA - auto-dim-other-buffers

auto-dim-other-buffers.el

The auto-dim-other-buffers-mode is a global minor mode which makes windows without focus less prominent. With many windows in a frame, this mode helps recognise which is the selected window by providing a non-intrusive but still noticeable visual indicator.

The mode provides two indications of the selected window. Firstly, background of non-selected windows is dimmed. Secondly, fringes of the selected windows are highlighted (not visualised in the image above).

Installation

The preferred way to install the mode is by grabbing auto-dim-other-buffers package form NonGNU ELPA:

M-x package-install RET auto-dim-other-buffers RET

Once installed, enable the mode with:

M-x auto-dim-other-buffers-mode RET

To make it enabled every time Emacs starts, add the following to Emacs initialisation file (typically ~/.emacs, ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.config/emacs/init.el):

(add-hook 'after-init-hook (lambda ()
  (when (fboundp 'auto-dim-other-buffers-mode)
    (auto-dim-other-buffers-mode t))))

Customisation

To configure how dimmed buffers look, customise auto-dim-other-buffers. This can be accomplished by:

M-x customize-face RET auto-dim-other-buffers RET

More options can be found in auto-dim-other-buffers customisation group which can be accessed with:

M-x customize-group RET auto-dim-other-buffers RET

Highlighting of fringes can be done by removing fringe entry from auto-dim-other-buffers-affected-faces list. Either via customising the variable or using the following snippet:

(setq auto-dim-other-buffers-affected-faces
      (assq-delete-all 'fringe auto-dim-other-buffers-affected-faces))

Troubleshooting

My screen is flickering

By its nature, auto-dim-other-buffers-mode often forces full-window refreshes which may cause flickering on some systems and displays. To mitigate it, try disabling fringe highlighting which—due to Emacs’ display code limitation—require full-frame refresh. See Customisation section above for instruction how to do it.

Text which should be hidden in org-mode is not

To hide text, org-mode uses org-hide face whose foreground is set to the background colour of the default face. When auto-dim-other-buffers-mode changes background of a dimmed window it also needs to be applied to the org-hide face. The good news is that this is supported out of the box. The caveat is that it requires that auto-dim-other-buffers and auto-dim-other-buffers-hide are changed in sync.

If text which should be hidden in org-mode is visible faintly, the most likely reason is that the latter face has not been updated. The solution is to customise it via

M-x customize-face RET auto-dim-other-buffers-hide RET

and set its foreground and background to match background of the auto-dim-other-buffers.

Afterword

Note that despite it, the mode operates on windows rather than buffers. In other words, selected window is highlighted and all other windows are dimmed even if they display the same buffer. The package is named auto-dim-other-buffer for historical reasons.

Requires Emacs 27 to work.