When using CVS, it's hard to tell if a file was locally modified. Looking for the "CVS-" vs "CVS:" on the modeline is not user friendly. Below will highlight the CVS/RCS text on the modeline if the file was locally modified. I'm currently using a defadvice, it would be great if something like this was built into vc.el. Albert (defvar vc-mode-ext (detach-extent (make-extent 0 0 ""))) (set-extent-face vc-mode-ext 'highlight) (defadvice vc-mode-line (after highlight activate) "highlight CVS/RCS tag if file is modified locally" (let* ((str vc-mode) (hdr "^ \\(CVS\\|RCS\\)") (locked-hdr (concat hdr "-"))) (when (and str ;; initial version may start with nil (string-match hdr str) (not (string-match locked-hdr str))) (let ((substr (substring str 1))) ;; normally modeline displays whatever is in the minor-mode-alist, ;; indexed by mode. The cdr can be either a string or (extent ;; . str) or a list of them. vc-mode is normally set to a string. ;; Change the variable to specify an extent, preceded by a regular ;; space (setq vc-mode (list " " (cons vc-mode-ext substr)))))))