a blinking vertical line in the Preview to show the position of the cursor of the editor

[ralf3u]

Steps to reproduce

• Open a fountain-document like Big Fish.
• Click right away in the middle of the editor within the text.

Result
It takes time to know where the highlighted line of the editor is located in the Preview-tab.

Expectation

• A blinking vertical line in the Preview as eye-catcher.
• The blinking vertical line should be in the text of the Preview at the same position like the cursor in the text of the editor.
• The blinking vertical line should be from its visual effect like the cursor in the highlighted line of the editor.
• The blinking vertical line should have the same font-size like the symbol before the eye-catcher.

Options
In preview.conf there should be the possibility

• to enable the eye-catcher when the editor is in focus (with true)
• to enable the eye-catcher when the sidebar is in focus (with true)
• to enable the feature for each format (with true)

The default settings should be false. So, with the appropriate settings the user has then four options:

1. no eye-catcher
2. eye-catcher when the editor is in focus
3. eye-catcher when the sidebar is in focus
4. eye-catcher when the editor or the sidebar is in focus.

So, a user who is using either the second or the third option has then the possibility to disable the eye-catcher for example by using the shortcut toggle editor/sidebar.

Context
The feature could be particularly interesting when there is a lot of text without empty lines and without paragraphs. Then the eye-catcher could be a useful help for orientation.

[xiota]

It sounds like you want something like a blinking caret in the preview pane. I don't know how to do that.

[ralf3u]

It sounds like you want something like a blinking caret in the preview pane. I don't know how to do that.

The feature blinking vertical line would be especially interesting for corrections of text.

During one issue I was sure that it is impossible to define a background color of an html-document that does not use a background color. But I was wrong. So, for me it seems to be that there is a free space between html-document and the rendering in the Preview-tab. In this free space it seems to be that one can add a document, like extra-media.css. So, if this is possible, then a blinking vertical line could be maybe solved the same way, by adding another css with css animation. Yesterday I found a blinking vertical line on google: css blinking cursor animation. The first result is amitmerchant.com/simple-blinking-cursor-animation-using-css/ where a blinking cursor is created only by css.

I don't how to program a software, but maybe the following thoughts could help to find a solution. So, here in slow motion the fire of the blinking vertical line:

• detect the place of the cursor in the editor
• connect the detection with the css for the blinking vertical line, maybe with JavaScript

If only css can be added that will be respected in the preview, so no other document format, then the blinking vertical line is a good idea, that can not be realized.

[xiota]

The info about making blinking cursors with css is helpful. Being able to send caret location from the editor to the webview is part of the problem.

[ralf3u]

Being able to send caret location from the editor to the webview is part of the problem.

That's right. I forgot that point. So, that are at least three steps:

• detect the position of the cursor in the editor
• transfer the position to the webview
• connect the position with the css for the blinking vertical line

[ralf3u]

A blinking vertical line in a customizable color would be even better.

[xiota]

I think this depends on solving the editor/webview sync problem. Right now, I know how to get the cursor position in the editor, but don't know how to translate that to the webview.