RE: visually mark off 80th column?

[Drew Adams]

> M-: (column-marker-1 80)
> *does* work, but for some reason just having:
> (add-to-list 'load-path "~/emacs/")
> (require 'column-marker)
> (column-marker-1 80)
>
> In my .emacs file does nothing! Very confusing. I'll post my whole
> .emacs file at the end, just in case I'm doing something that
> conflicts...

The reason is because `column-marker' is local to the current buffer. Doing what
you did sets it (only) for the buffer that is current during loading of your
.emacs.

Set it in a mode hook, as I suggested, to turn it on automatically for any
buffer of a particular mode. This is described in the file header.
 
> I also notice that when I type M-: (column-marker-1 80) it only
> highlights the part of the column that have characters, which isn't
> really what I want. Is there any way to make this highlight the whole
> column?

Not that I know of.

But you might be able to use `vline.el' (with `vline-style' = `compose') to do
what you want. You will need to create a command that pins the highlighting to a
particular column.