hide the cursor in nvim-tree buffer

[vivitekk]

is it possible to add a new setup option to hide the cursor in nvim-tree buffer?

[alex-courtis]

Cursor hiding is possible and working in nvim: neovim/neovim#3688

Unfortunately it's controlled via a global option. I experimented with winhl and buffer locals however had no luck.

We can dynamically set the global option, however it's pretty hacky. Please try this POC out for a week and see if it behaves. I think you'll need to tweak things to handle some edge cases.

vim.cmd([[
" we have to set some gui attributes for blend to take effect
:hi NvimTreeCursorInvisible guifg=bg guibg=fg blend=100
]])

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "WinEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {
  callback = function(data)
    local api = require("nvim-tree.api")
    if api.tree.is_tree_buf(data.buf) then
      vim.cmd("set guicursor+=a:NvimTreeCursorInvisible/lNvimTreeCursorInvisible")
    else
      vim.cmd("set guicursor-=a:NvimTreeCursorInvisible/lNvimTreeCursorInvisible")
    end
  end,
})

[alex-courtis]

Alternative: change the highlight group instead:

vim.cmd("hi NvimTreeCursorInvisible guifg=bg guibg=fg blend=0")
vim.cmd("set guicursor+=a:NvimTreeCursorInvisible/lNvimTreeCursorInvisible")

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "WinEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {
  callback = function(data)
    local api = require("nvim-tree.api")
    if api.tree.is_tree_buf(data.buf) then
      vim.cmd("hi NvimTreeCursorInvisible blend=100")
    else
      vim.cmd("hi NvimTreeCursorInvisible blend=0")
    end
  end,
})

[erikbloodshed]

Improving on @alex-courtis answer:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "WinEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {
      callback = function(data)
        local tree_api = require("nvim-tree.api")
        local hl = vim.api.nvim_get_hl(0, { name = "Cursor", link = false })
        if tree_api.tree.is_tree_buf(data.buf) then
          vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "Cursor", { blend = 100, fg = hl.fg, bg = hl.bg })
          vim.opt_local.guicursor:append("a:Cursor/lCursor")
        else
          vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "Cursor", { blend = 0, fg = hl.fg, bg = hl.bg })
          vim.opt_local.guicursor:remove("a:Cursor/lCursor")
        end
      end,
})

[alex-courtis]

That looks great, glad to hear it's working.

I'll change this to a feature request #3194. This can be a first class feature with a caveat.