ye, $line() (which i use to grab the full highlight line from the window) didn't support @WID until 7.12. i used it so that /hl_checkHL could be abstracted; it uniquely identifies a window through its wid. this can't be done perfectly any other way, but cid+window name is close enough. it's just much more sensible to do it through wid, but as i said i'm happy to modify it if there's enough interest