Custom highlight groups

[husa]

Would be great to have custom highlight groups for faster and easier identification of target.
Something like this:

I've made a small proof of concept. If you're interested I can share how I approached it.

[leath-dub]

Would be great to have custom highlight groups for faster and easier identification of target. Something like this:

I've made a small proof of concept. If you're interested I can share how I approached it.

Please do share, I am very happy to review code and help people. I am very busy with final year so my own development on the project is very limited lately.

[husa]

The idea is to define highlight groups(boundaries) together with actual line formatting.

---@class BufferList
---@field items {
--- id: string,
--- name: string,
--- is_dir: boolean,
--- basename: string,
--- dirname: string,
--- anchor: string,
--- formatted_name: string, -- pad basename
--- icon: {
---   symbol: string,
---   hlgroup: string,
--- },
---}[]
local BufferList = {
  items = {},
}

-- other methods
-- ....

function BufferList:format_lines()
  for _, buffer in pairs(self.items) do
    ---@type {text: string, hlgroup: string}[]
    local format = {
      { text = buffer.anchor, hlgroup = highlight_groups.anchor.name },
      { text = buffer.icon.symbol, hlgroup = buffer.icon.hlgroup },
      { text = buffer.formatted_name, hlgroup = highlight_groups.filename.name },
      { text = buffer.dirname, hlgroup = highlight_groups.dirname.name },
    }
    local delimeter = " "
    local line_text = pluck("text", format)
    local line = table.concat(line_text, delimeter)

    ---@type {first: integer, last: integer, hlgroup: string}[]
    local highlights = {}
    for i = 1, #format do
      local first = 0
      if i >= 2 then
        first = highlights[i - 1].last + #delimeter
      end
      highlights[i] = {
        first = first,
        last = first + #format[i].text,
        hlgroup = format[i].hlgroup,
      }
    end
    buffer.line = line
    buffer.highlights = highlights
  end
end

This is just a quick and dirty approach, to make things work, but hope you get the idea.
Potentially format can be defined as a list of strings, for some customizabilty, ie. {'tag', 'icon', 'filename', 'dirname'}. Or even, including custom parts that the plugin consumer will have to implement themself, such as custom icon for directories or path shortening, etc.