Changing vim 'gutter' color

Question

See the screenshot of how I have vim configured below. The 'gutter' i.e. where the '+' and '~' symbols appear show my git status using this amazing sublime text port for vim: https://github.com/airblade/vim-gitgutter

How do I change the color of the gutter where there are no '+'/'~' symbols? I.e. the grey part? This is how you change the number column: VIM initial settings: change backgound color for line number on the left side? but I can't find how to change the 'gutter' color.

Any ideas?

Many thanks.

Answer 1

This "gutter" is called the signs column. (See :help signs for more information.) The highlight group associated with this column is called SignColumn, and can be set like this (using the example from the help section):

:highlight SignColumn guibg=darkgrey

Answer 2

To change the color in your ~/.vimrc so that your gutter is the same color as where your line numbers show up is the following:

highlight clear SignColumn

The git-gutter docs have some other helpful suggestions.

Answer 3

Another option that hasn't been mentioned is to eliminate the sign column entirely and put the signs into the number column.

Adding this to your ~/.vimrc

set signcolumn=number

produces

(this is using custom symbols with the Ale plugin in iterm Vim).

This is available in "full" Vim versions 7.4.2201 or newer that include the +signs feature (I use the version installed by Homebrew on MacOS).