vi-tilde-fringe

Displays tildes in the fringe on empty lines a la Vi.

Original idea from /r/emacs.

Install

The package will be available soon in MELPA.

If you have MELPA in package-archives, use

M-x package-install RET vi-tilde-fringe-mode RET

If you don't, open vi-tilde-fringe.el in Emacs and call package-install-from-buffer.

Usage

To toggle the mode locally:

M-x vi-tilde-fringe-mode

To toggle the mode globally:

M-x global-vi-tilde-fringe-mode

To turn it on automatically only for programming modes:

(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'vi-tilde-fringe-mode)

Customization

Open the customization group buffer:

M-x customize-group RET vi-tilde-fringe RET

There you can change the bitmap array or the face of the symbol drawn in the fringe. By default the symbol is a tilde :-) and its face simply inherits from default.