Question

I want to have a gray eol character set by

set list listchars=tab:>>,trail:$

where there are no spaces next to the character “:”

I get no eol character for the above code if I use no spaces next to “:”.

I get a green trailing character if I use one space at

- - tab:[space]>> --

although I have not set it up explicitly

such that

alt text http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/175564/trailingCharacter.png
(old code in terminal)

How can you make the eol character gray in Vim, and to make it work again?

Answer 1

There are two highlighting groups: SpecialKey and NonText. The trailing characters you mention belong to the NonText one.

Try something like this (y/pasted):

set list
set listchars=eol:$,tab:>-,trail:~,extends:>,precedes:<
hi NonText ctermfg=7 guifg=gray

Does that work for you, or did I understand the question wrong (quite possible).