Background stripes, or location or font of row|col cursor position indicator in NetBeans 6.9?

Question

I find the "rol|col" indicator at the bottom right of the NetBeans 6.9 window to be too small for convenient use when working on things that need precise alignment by character. I can always use a comment to help me align things:

    // Alignment guide: 12345678_1_2345678_2_2345678_3_2345678_4
    System.out.println("Every line must be less than 40 characters.");  // (Too long!)
    System.out.println("How do I know how long the string is?");

but I would really prefer to just be able to see where my cursor is. Either making the font bold, or moving the row|col indicator, or having some sort of very faint background shading pattern (e.g. vertical stripes that are 10 characters wide) would do the trick. (Changing the position of the text-limit line each time is too much effort to be a suitable option.)

Can NetBeans 6.9 natively do any of this? Are there any plugins that can help?

Answer 1

To the extent I have been able to determine, there is no straightforward way to do what I requested with recent versions of NetBeans.

Older versions had a plugin that installed the Substance look and feel, which included an ability to set background images. An appropriately-chosen pattern of vertical bands could enable this sort of alignment.

But the substance-netbeans plugin is apparently no longer supported.