Highlighting command line in vim

There is "line" extension in the latest Ctrl-P plugin for vim (ctrlp) which can do fuzzy line search. You need to enable the extension manually. Here is my config in .vimrc:

let g:ctrlp_map = '<c-p>'
let g:ctrlp_cmd = 'CtrlPLastMode'
let g:ctrlp_extensions = ['buffertag', 'tag', 'line', 'dir']

After that you press Ctrl-p to bring menu, then press Ctrl-f several times until the line mode is on. Type your fuzzy string now:

UPDATE 27 Feb 2014

An alternative solution that I'm currently using myself would be to use unite. In order to do fuzzy line search you need to slightly tune unite:

call unite#filters#matcher_default#use(['matcher_fuzzy'])
call unite#filters#sorter_default#use(['sorter_rank'])
call unite#custom#source('file,file/new,buffer,file_rec,line', 'matchers', 'matcher_fuzzy')
nnoremap <C-k> :<C-u>Unite -buffer-name=search -start-insert line<cr>

Now press Ctrl-k and type:

By the way, unite can also do fuzzy file search by name.

UPDATE 03 Aug 2016

Another way to do line search is to use fzf along with accompanying vim plugin. See the installation instructions here: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.vim#installation

After you have installed both fzf and fzf.vim, you can use :BLines to search lines in the current buffer:

You may have noticed it's not exactly fuzzy search meaning that I need to use spaces. This may not work you.

Unfortunately, there's currently no way to influence the coloring of 'showcmd'. You'd have to modify Vim's source code to achieve something like this. You can ask on the vim_dev mailing list for help, and post your patch for comments and eventual inclusion there.

Making it more obvious that Vim is still waiting for keys to complete the command (by using different, stronger colors) could be perceived as beneficial, so there are good chances for inclusion of such a patch.