Focus provides focus-mode that dims the text of surrounding sections, similar to iA Writer's Focus Mode.

You can install Focus using elpa. It's available on melpa:

M-x package-install focus

The package has only been tried on Emacs 24.4 and 24.5, but should work on Emacs 24 or higher.

Enable the focus-mode with M-x focus-mode .

Also, focus-read-only-mode is provided, which is a mode optimized for continuous reading. It inhibits change in the buffer, hides the cursor and provides bindings for moving between things (defined in Thing At Point). One can toggle focus-read-only-mode with M-x focus-read-only-mode or C-c C-q if focus-mode is enabled.

Some bindings for simple navigation and exiting focus-read-only-mode are provided.

The amount of dimness can be customized by setting the focus-dimness variable, where a positive integer indicates a more dim color (i.e. more blended with the background color of your theme), and a negative integer indicates a less dim color.

Focus uses the Thing At Point library to choose what section should be in focus. By default, modes derived from prog-mode uses defun, and modes derived from text-mode uses sentence. This a customizable by setting the focus-mode-to-thing variable, which is a list containing pairs on the form (mode . thing).

This is what it looks like:

Light Theme (leuven)	Dark Theme (monokai)