Add a vertical ruler that follows the cursor

[thewintersolstice]

• VSCode Version: Code - Insiders 1.8.0-insider (dbf3ba7, 2016-11-04T10:15:01.593Z)
• OS Version: Windows_NT ia32 10.0.14393
• Extensions:

Steps to Reproduce:

1. No possibility to display a vertical ruler. See: SublimeText's "CursorRuler" and Atom's "Rulerz"
2. Thank you.

[kaiwood]

Those examples are all plugins, not options that should be built in.

A quick search in the extension marketplace reveals: cursoruler

There are a couple others that show all kinds of rulers/indent guides.

[thewintersolstice]

Thank you for your reply.
1: "CursorRuler" is a sad example. The line breaks where there is no text, also it's slow, also sometimes it falls behind. Do not know if this is due to limits of VSCode or extension itself.
2: Who decides what is an extension and what is part of core code? Why not make >File >Open an extension? Ability to create extensions is an option, not an excuse not to implement features in the core application. There are editors where having a vertical line is just a setting, just like showing the current line.
3: The "indent guide" feature is something different: it connects the beginning & end of blocks of code. Focus of my entry is to have vertical line that shows location of the cursor, just like there is a horizontal line - when both combined creates very useful "crosshair" effect.
4: Thank you.

[waldyrious]

I think it would make sense to tie this functionality with the current editor.renderLineHighlight configuration option -- i.e. it would make sense to add an editor.renderColumnHighlight option for this purpose (which would be useful for the same reasons that the line highlight is).

Note that such a naming scheme would not only be more consistent with existing functionality, but it would also avoid confusion with terminology used for different purposes (i.e. indent guides and vertical rulers).

[waldyrious]

Also check out #30610, regarding the ambiguity of the term "ruler".

[rakkarage]

ya i recently set editor.lineHighlightBackground and expected to find a column highlight too - please & thanks

[alexdima]

There is editor.rulers e.g. "editor.rulers": [10, 20, 40]:

[waldyrious]

@alexandrudima please note that this request is for a dynamic ruler that shows in what column the cursor is, the same way that editor.renderLineHighlight shows in what line the cursor is.

The misunderstanding is due to the conflicting meanings given to the term "ruler" (which was separately raised in #30610), but looking at the packages mentioned in the opening comment (CursorRuler and Rulerz) clarifies what OP meant.

[vscodebot]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 20 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[WhatsThatItsPat]

I'd like something of a "cursor crosshair." Just as the horizontal line is highlighted, I'd like the vertical to be as well.

[lilole]

How are the "upvotes" counted? Is it for all comments or just the top one?

This seems like an obvious feature. I'm in some old HTML and JSP [sigh] files sometimes and this would save some of my sanity by helping me see open/close tags lining up.

And when it's time to factor code, top and bottom of "tall" blocks are much easier to see, even when I'm on a line somewhere inside the block. The indent guides help, but seeing line starts relative to my cursor helps more sometimes.

And 3.5 years is a long time. I just switched to Vscode from Atom and I'm surprised this simple basic useful thing isn't already here.

[lilole]

@alexdima does your bot count the upvotes on only the first comment? Or across all comments? I'll have to ask a few friends for some upvotes. Yay.

[vscodebot]

This feature request has not yet received the 20 community upvotes it takes to make to our backlog. 10 days to go. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding

[vscodebot]

🙁 In the last 60 days, this feature request has received less than 20 community upvotes and we closed it. Still a big Thank You to you for taking the time to create this issue! To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!