Letters are hidden when indenting with tabs and having listchars

[luissolanodev]

Hey! Sorry if the title sounds kinda confusing. I have files indented with tabs looking like this (first described here):

I have this nvim config:

local opt = vim.opt

opt.history = 1000
opt.swapfile = false
opt.updatetime = 750
opt.undofile = true
opt.guicursor = ''
opt.cursorline = true
opt.cursorcolumn = true
opt.number = true
opt.relativenumber = true
opt.wrap = false
opt.splitbelow = true
opt.splitright = true
opt.colorcolumn = { '80' }
opt.showtabline = 2
opt.encoding = 'utf-8'
opt.hidden = true
opt.termguicolors = true
vim.g.mapleader = ','
require("plugins")

Indent-blankline config:

vim.opt.list = true
vim.opt.listchars = {
   eol = "$"
}
require('indent_blankline').setup {
   show_end_of_line = true,
   filetype_exclude = {'text', 'help', 'markdown', 'dashboard'},
   show_trailing_blankline_indent = false,
   char_highlight_list = {
      'IndentBlanklineIndent1',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent2',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent3',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent4',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent5',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent6'
   }
}

As you can see I have a simple setup. If I remove vim.opt.listchars it works:

Any help?:( The solution may be simple but at this point I don't know what it could be.

[Daxtorim]

If I remove vim.opt.listchars it works:

This is because you were overwriting the listchars without specifying replacements for tabs. Without anything set for tabs, vim will display ^I, which is only two columns wide regardless of your tabstop setting. Since the plugin still creates the virtual text based on tabstop it will be too long and override actual text.

The vim defaults for listchars are:

vim.opt.listchars = {
    tab = "> ",
    trail = "-",
    nbsp = "+",
}

So just add your eol to that table and it should work as expected again.

Alternatively you could also just set vim.opt.tabstop = 2.

[luissolanodev]

Hey that worked! thanks! I was a bit confusing thinking that "tab" option was somehow set by this plugin and thus showing the indentation marks even when I didn't have it in my listchars. But it seems to be a different functionality, right? Although I read the help and couldn't figured out too much what > is...

						*lcs-tab*
  tab:xy[z]	Two or three characters to be used to show a tab.
		The third character is optional.

  tab:xy	The 'x' is always used, then 'y' as many times as will
		fit.  Thus "tab:>-" displays:
			>
			>-
			>--
			etc.

  tab:xyz	The 'z' is always used, then 'x' is prepended, and
		then 'y' is used as many times as will fit.  Thus
		"tab:<->" displays:
			>
			<>
			<->
			<-->
			etc.

		When "tab:" is omitted, a tab is shown as ^I.

Thank you again!

[lukas-reineke]

Although I read the help and couldn't figured out too much what > is

> doesn't have any meaning. It is just the character Neovim displays for tabs by default.

I'll open this issue again, the plugin should handle this more gracefully.
And I also need to update the readme, the examples there should not overwrite all listchars.

[luissolanodev]

Hey @lukas-reineke thanks for the improvement. I'm getting this error when entering neovim though: packer.nvim: Error running config for indent-blankline.nvim: /usr/share/nvim/runtime/lua/vim/_meta.lua:170: E474: Invalid argument

config is as follows:

vim.opt.list = true
vim.opt.listchars:append("eol:$")

require('indent_blankline').setup {
   show_end_of_line = true,
   filetype_exclude = {'text', 'help', 'markdown', 'dashboard'},
   show_trailing_blankline_indent = false,
   char_highlight_list = {
      'IndentBlanklineIndent1',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent2',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent3',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent4',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent5',
      'IndentBlanklineIndent6'
   }
}

[lukas-reineke]

vim.opt.listchars:append("eol:$") is standard Neovim. That has nothing to do with this plugin.
Not sure why it is broken for you. Maybe try updating Neovim?

[Daxtorim]

It should be

vim.opt.listchars:append({ eol = "$" })

and only works since Neovim v0.5.1, which was released 2 days ago.

[lukas-reineke]

vim.opt.listchars:append("eol:$") works fine for me on 0.5.0, 0.5.1 and latest master