Add configurable delays for setting highlights and signs

[w0rp]

Setting highlights and signs repeatedly can slow down editing in Vim slightly. It would be nice to be able to configure settings for delaying the placement of highlights and signs. Two new settings could be added for delaying either highlights or signs. When the numbers are above 0, the existing functions for setting the highlights or signs could be called after a short delay. The timer would be reset each time new results come through for a buffer. This would make it so several quick edits to a file could be made faster.

[ristillu]

I think I would quite like this feature.

Scenario:

• I used to use vim + tabs. Switching tabs with ALE was fast
• I am trying neovim + buffers (same problem exists with vim + buffers)
• working in a legacy code base that I refactor. Files can be in the order of 1000 lines and error lists quickfix or location lists can be in the order of 150+ lines
• with highlighting turned off (let g:ale_set_highlights = 0 in my .vimrc) switching buffers is acceptable
• with highlighting turned on when I switch buffers initially the screen updates but every single line is red-squiggle underlined (as if the complete file is an error). There is almost no response to keyboard (very laggy) for around 3-5 seconds. And then possibly ale_refresh is invoked and the red-squiggles everywhere disappear replaced with only red-squiggles under correct error/warning code and keyboard response comes back.
• it's worth mentioning I'm using about 10 different linters for these file types and several of them duplicate each other (e.g. Python files where I might be using mypy + pyright + pyre + several other less heavyweight linters). I get many duplicate positives but I can be sure I'm getting the best coverage.

What I want is the correct red-squiggles but I also want responsiveness. I have a powerful machine with excess cores and memory but that has little effect. I don't want to manually toggle ALE and/or ALE settings on and off when I switch buffers. I want to be able to swap context, maintain responsiveness and yet have all the ALE information and hints available.

In the context of this Issue it would be great if I could switch buffers and ALE does its asynchronous processing of other stuff and then after some configurable time delay spawns the highlight processing asynchronously without affecting my interaction.

Diagnosing at the moment I'm running (neo)vim with logging and tailing the logs with timestamps in another terminal and can see clear 3-5 second delays as I switch between two buffers.

[ristillu]

Ugh literally one minute after commenting I found it was my fault. A web page advised me to add set hidden to my .vimrc and that effectively solves the problem for me. I guess without that setting each time I would buffer switch everything would have to reload and at that stage in my session that's not a clean process. Opening new buffers is not problematic for some reason (no symptoms like those I mentioned in my first post) but certainly swapping buffers was and now with set hidden is not any more.

I'll leave my comments in case they are informative to anyone else. Alternatively I'm happy to delete them if you feel they are polluting this thread.