New highlight group for dimmed text

[micampe]

As someone who believes code comments are there to be read and not just written by a coding agent, my color scheme has the Comment highlight group in a visible, readable, color, distinct from Normal.

But many color schemes and plugin authors disagree with me, so color schemes set the Comment highlight group to a dim color, and plugin authors assume Comment is a dim color, so when they need to show something non-emphasized, like dividers or other accessories, they use that highlight group.

The result is that most plugins look bad by default for me and I have to adjust each one individually. While this is not a huge problem, I also don't think I am alone, and the solution is not complex.

I would like to propose a new highlight group, serving a similar role to Underlined or Whitespace: Dimmed.

I wouldn't mind have it link to Comment by default, given that the default color scheme has fairly dim comments.

I can write the patch for it, but I thought that something like this would require some discussion first. If there is interest I'll draft a PR.

[justinmk]

+1 from me. Somewhat overlaps with :help hl-DiagnosticHint but I'm not aware of any builtin highlight group that has a "greyed-out" or "dimmed" semantics, and it is definitely something needed for UI elements.

Related:

• default highlight groups for headings (h1/h2/h3), success, attention #32646

[echasnovski]

but I'm not aware of any builtin highlight group that has a "greyed-out" or "dimmed" semantics,

:h hl-DiagnosticUnnecessary is quite close.

[drowning-cat]

In tokyonight.nvim, hl-Comment is set to italic, which can make it difficult to use in other contexts. So, adding a separate highlight for the dimmed text would be helpful.

Related:

• [snacks.picker] Default neovim colorscheme issue folke/snacks.nvim#2632.