If you want to highlight a column in a window, use the video character-attribute in column function, v_chattcol():
v_chattcol(wn_row, wn_col, ch, att, q, mv_type, wnp)
The following code example shows how to highlight column 5 of a window:
ex_wnp = wn_def(0, 0, 10, 25, LNORMAL, BDR_DOTP); wn_up(ex_wnp); int v_chattcol(0, 5, NULLPARM, LREVERSE, ENDCOL, ATT, ex_wnp);