Vim - keeping track of exact whitespace counts

Question

In both Eclipse and Notepad++, I have my text editors configured so a space has a semi-transparent dot in the center, which makes it easy to count whitespace. I prefer to use spaces instead of tabs in my text editing, and this feature is crucial when working with a whitespace-sensitive language like Python.

I have attached a screenshot with some dummy code in case my wording wasn't clear.

At any rate, is there any way to come close to this functionality in Vim (or GVim)? I suppose there is highlighting but that does seem a bit subpar. There's also good old fashioned math by looking at the column number. What are my other options?

Answer 1

Thes lines in your vimrc should give you an approximation but you won't get dots for normal or leading space: only trailing spaces. That's a Vim limitation.

set list
set listchars=
set listchars+=tab:»\ 
set listchars+=extends:› 
set listchars+=precedes:‹ 
set listchars+=nbsp:· 
set listchars+=trail:· 

See :help 'list' and :help 'listchars.

Answer 2

I agree with romainl's answer, but would like to add a mention of the indent guides, which can colour indentation based on your current tab size settings.