[themes] Make folding indicator theme-able

[mtbaqer]

I'm currently working on the Better Folding extension, and would love to have the ability to customize the folding indicator's color.

My use case is simply setting the color's alpha to 0 to hide it, and show the customized collapsed text provided by the extension.

I am aware of #170447 (I am the author), but until that is merged, I could use this.

Would be more than happy to make the PR for this, just wanted to make an issue to see if there is any limitations I should know first.

[aeschli]

We have a setting to hide the folding twisty next to the line numbers. Is that helpful?

[mtbaqer]

Apologies for not being clear. By folding indicator I meant current placeholder for the collapsed text. The "..." that shows at the end of the folded line.

[aeschli]

Ok, I see. It's a bit of a workaround to add a color that can then will be made transparent. Especially as control of colors comes from themes. We're still waiting for @alexdima to be back and discuss #170447.

[VSCodeTriageBot]

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Happy Coding!

[mtbaqer]

I admit that it is definitely a workaround (just like many things with the extension). It is just that changes of that size usually take a bit of time to be approved and merged, while adding this should be relatively simple (again, more than happy to provide a PR) and would go long way for the extension.

It also comes with the benefit of providing one more thing users can personalize as well.

[aeschli]

The problem is really that colors come from themes. Your extension can not / should not overwrite that color.

[mtbaqer]

I agree 100% that my extension should not overwrite this. However, I would like to make the cases of:

• vscode-inline-fold using exploits like this to provide the inline folding feature requested in Support folding ranges inside a line #50840.
• vscode-explicit-folding delaying registering folding providers a second or two to allow it to override the default ranges, to provide the features requested in [folding] Collapse ending brace to the same line #3352
• vscode-better-folding (my extension) using both mentioned exploits + this, which is definitely not my best work, to provide the custom collapsedText in [folding] custom folding text for folded ranges #70794.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that providing these features takes a lot of time and effort while at the same time joggling the rest of the backlog, and you guys doing more than an amazing job at it. All I'm asking is to allow us the extension authors to fill in the gaps in the meantime, and sometimes the only way we can deliver these requested features is using these hacky solutions. Of course they don't work for many cases, but a good enough hacky solution is much better than no solution at all.

This was the long way of me saying: yes, my extension should not do this, but until #170447 gets merged, this might be our best alternative for now.

[aeschli]

So if we added that color, how would your extension set it to transparent?

[mtbaqer]

My initial thoughts are changing the workplace settings (like how vscode-peacock does it) to change the color to something with alpha value 0 (for example #00000000). Maybe even allow an option to make it apply to universal settings as well.

I'm also thinking of having it apply on activate() and only on supported languages, and be removed on dispose() and while using unsupported languages.

Of course all while making sure that users are aware of this and why we are doing it with an option to deactivate it and fallback to the current solution (with all its downfalls).

[VSCodeTriageBot]

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!

[VSCodeTriageBot]

🙁 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!

[aeschli]

Verify that the new color editor.collapsedText allows to change the folding ...

[alexr00]

I don't see an editor.collapsedText color:

[alexr00]

Ah this isn't in insiders yet.

[VSCodeTriageBot]

Issue marked as unreleased but unable to locate closing commit in issue timeline. You can manually reference a commit by commenting \closedWith someCommitSha, or directly add the insiders-released label if you know this has already been releaased

[aeschli]

Documenting the new color I think we should rename the color to editor.foldPlaceholderForeground to be consistent with the existing color ditor.foldBackground (also we don't use 'collapsed' in editor folding)
#219341