This answer relates to the portion of the question dealing with fringe indicators. When the fringe(s) are visible, they appear to the immediate left/right of the window body. The manual contains a diagram explaining the terminology:
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Basic-Windows.html
The fringe-indicator-alist
is a buffer-local variable which may be customized to include various fringe indicators. To inspect the value of this variable, visit the buffer at issue and type C-h v
aka M-x describe-variable
. The default value in Emacs 29 is as follows:
((truncation left-arrow right-arrow)
(continuation left-curly-arrow right-curly-arrow)
(overlay-arrow . right-triangle)
(up . up-arrow)
(down . down-arrow)
(top top-left-angle top-right-angle)
(bottom bottom-left-angle bottom-right-angle top-right-angle top-left-angle)
(top-bottom left-bracket right-bracket top-right-angle top-left-angle)
(empty-line . empty-line)
(unknown . question-mark))
C-h v
(akaM-x describe-variable
) and thenfringe-indicator-alist
. This variable can be customized by the user to whatever suits his/her needs. It does not appear that the question contains sufficient information to write up an answer for your particular setup, but evaluating the variable should answer your own question as to fringe indicators. What is displayed within the window-body, which is not the fringe, is different. The question appears to confuse the window-body of the buffer with the fringe ...?fringe-indicator-alist
, I still didn't know what was going on with some fringe characters (little circles) in Org Mode. It turned out that bookmarks were to blame. See my question here.