How can I change yank/delete to show relative line numbers during the yank/delete in evil?

Question

I use evil via spacemacs. When I use yank, it’s mostly whole line numbers – like y20y. To a lesser extent, this is often true of delete – d10d

Is there anything I can add to my Spacemacs config to toggle on the relative line numbers when I press the first y and to toggle it off if I complete or cancel the yank? And the same for delete? This would make it obvious how many lines I need to yank. It feels like something that should already exist because it is a quite common use case.

Answer 1

You'll need to install relative-line-numbers for this one

(require 'relative-line-numbers)

(defun yank-with-numbering ()
  (interactive)
  (relative-line-numbers-mode t)
  (call-interactively 'evil-yank)
  (relative-line-numbers-mode -1)
  )
(define-key
  evil-normal-state-local-map ;; or `evil-normal-local-map` if you want it globally
  (kbd "y")
  #'yank-with-numbering)

Maybe (I'm not sure) it's a good exercise that you try and code it yourself for deleting. You can find out the function name for d by doing C-h k d ("help on key 'd'").