Dired - highlight the name of the directory in directory headers

Dired - highlight the name of the directory in directory headers

[Sebastian Tennant]

Hello all,

I thought it would be easy to highlight the name of the directory in
directory headers in Dired buffers.  For example:

  /home/bob/Notes:
            ^^^^^
My first approach was to use font-lock-add-keywords:

(font-lock-add-keywords 'dired-mode '("\\([^/]+\\):\n" . (1 'bold)))

but try as I might I could not get this to work.

I then thought I would add a function to dired-mode-hook:

 (defun highlight-directory-name-in-headers ()
   (hi-lock-face-buffer "\\([^/]+\\):\n" 'bold 1))
 (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook 'highlight-directory-name-in-headers t)

but that didn't work either.

In the end, I got the mode hook to 'work' by delaying the call to
hi-lock-face-buffer:

 (defun highlight-directory-name-in-headers ()
   (run-at-time
    0.1 nil 'hi-lock-face-buffer "\\([^/]+\\):\n" 'bold 1))

but this is an ugly kludge if ever I saw one.

How should it be done?

sebyte
-- 
Dorothy Annan Trevor Tennant database - DATTdb
http://dattdb.info

Dired - highlight the name of the directory in directory headers

[Sebastian Tennant]

Hello all,

I reached for a timer because I've been working with them recently
but, of course, using advice is aprroximately one hundred times
better:

 (advice-add
  'dired-mode :after
  (lambda (&rest args)
    (hi-lock-face-buffer "\\([^/]+\\):\n" 'bold 1))
  '((name . highlight-directory-name-in-headers)))

I'd still love to know why adding an 'ordinary' function to
dired-mode-hook doesn't work.

sebyte
-- 
Dorothy Annan Trevor Tennant database - DATTdb
http://dattdb.info

Re: Dired - highlight the name of the directory in directory headers

[Michael Heerdegen]

Sebastian Tennant <sdt@sebyte.me> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> I thought it would be easy to highlight the name of the directory in
> directory headers in Dired buffers.  For example:
>
>   /home/bob/Notes:
>             ^^^^^
> My first approach was to use font-lock-add-keywords:
>
> (font-lock-add-keywords 'dired-mode '("\\([^/]+\\):\n" . (1 'bold)))
>
> but try as I might I could not get this to work.

One problem with your code is that `font-lock-add-keywords' expects a
_list_ of keywords.

I think it's also better to match the end of the line instead of the
newline char.

Dired uses this:

  (list dired-subdir-regexp '(1 dired-header-face))

I think it's best to start with that.  It has the advantage that it
doesn't accidentally match file names including a colon.

Michael.

RE: Dired - highlight the name of the directory in directory headers

[Drew Adams]

> I thought it would be easy to highlight the name of the directory in
> directory headers in Dired buffers.  For example:
> 
>   /home/bob/Notes:
>             ^^^^^
> My first approach was to use font-lock-add-keywords:
> 
> (font-lock-add-keywords 'dired-mode '("\\([^/]+\\):\n" . (1 'bold)))
> 
> but try as I might I could not get this to work.

FWIW, Dired+ highlights this line (with face
`diredp-dir-heading') using this font-lock entry:

 '("^  \\(.+:\\)$" 1 diredp-dir-heading) ; Directory headers

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/dired%2b.el