Your highlight-regexp
-solution can be made into a minor-mode with the following elisp (e.g., in your .emacs
file).
You can activate the minor mode by right-clicking onto one of the mode-names in the mode-line and then selecting nl2-mode
. You can deactivate the minor mode by clicking on nl2
in the mode line and selecting Turn off minor mode
.
To understand the code see the help for define-minor-mode
and define-key
(e.g., C-h f define-minor-mode
RET). Note, that in emacs also mouse clicks in menus count as key strokes.
(define-minor-mode nl2-mode
"Highlight two successive newlines."
:global t
:lighter " nl2"
(if nl2-mode
(highlight-regexp "\\(^\\s-*$\\)\n" 'hi-yellow)
(unhighlight-regexp "\\(^\\s-*$\\)\n")))
(define-key mode-line-mode-menu [nl2-mode]
`(menu-item ,(purecopy "nl2-mode") nl2-mode
:help "Highlight two succesive newlines."
:button (:toggle . (bound-and-true-p nl2-mode))))
There are several facts that make highlighting two consecutive empty lines more complicated (font-lock
tends to only highlight non-empty regions, linebreaks are limits for the region to re-fontify, re-fontification after buffer changes are required).
The following code shows one way. Maybe, there are easier ways.
(require 'font-lock)
(global-font-lock-mode)
(defface jit-lock-nl2-face '((default :background "yellow"))
"Face to indicate two or more successive newlines."
:group 'jit-lock)
(defun jit-nl2-extend (start end &optional old)
"Extend region to be re-fontified"
(save-excursion
(save-match-data
;; trailing:
(goto-char end)
(skip-chars-forward "[[:blank:]]\n")
(setq jit-lock-end (point))
;; leading:
(goto-char start)
(beginning-of-line)
(skip-chars-backward "[[:blank:]]\n")
(unless (bolp) (forward-line))
(setq jit-lock-start (point)))))
(defun jit-nl2 (jit-lock-start jit-lock-end)
"Highlight two or more successive newlines."
(save-excursion
(save-match-data
(jit-nl2-extend jit-lock-start jit-lock-end)
;; cleanup
(remove-text-properties jit-lock-start jit-lock-end '(font-lock-face jit-lock-nl2-face))
;; highlight
(while (< (point) jit-lock-end)
(if (looking-at "[[:blank:]]*\n\\([[:blank:]]*\n\\)+")
(progn (put-text-property (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0) 'font-lock-face 'jit-lock-nl2-face)
(goto-char (match-end 0)))
(forward-line))))))
(add-hook 'after-change-major-mode-hook (lambda ()
(add-hook 'jit-lock-after-change-extend-region-functions 'jit-nl2-extend)
(jit-lock-register 'jit-nl2)
(jit-lock-mode 1)
))