RELATIVE NUMBER CURRENT WINDOW

by Ingo Karkat

DESCRIPTION

The 'relativenumber' setting helps you use the [|count|] for even quicker navigation and manipulation, but it's only useful in the current window, where the cursor is. For all other windows, the absolute line numbers offer a better orientation (e.g. when you have the same buffer in splits above and below your current window, and you need to decide which contains a location you want to go to).

This plugin sets up autocmds to show relative numbers only in the current window, and switches them to absolute numbers when the window is left. Windows that do not have 'relativenumber' set are left as-is.

USAGE

Globally enable 'relativenumber' in your vimrc via
    :set relativenumber
After sourcing this plugin, 'relativenumber' will only be active for the
current window. So with multiple split windows, only one of them, the one
where the cursor is in, will have the 'relativenumber'; all others will have
'number' set.

INSTALLATION

The code is hosted in a Git repo at https://github.com/inkarkat/vim-RelativeNumberCurrentWindow You can use your favorite plugin manager, or "git clone" into a directory used for Vim packages. Releases are on the "stable" branch, the latest unstable development snapshot on "master".

This script is also packaged as a vimball. If you have the "gunzip" decompressor in your PATH, simply edit the *.vmb.gz package in Vim; otherwise, decompress the archive first, e.g. using WinZip. Inside Vim, install by sourcing the vimball or via the :UseVimball command.

vim RelativeNumberCurrentWindow*.vmb.gz
:so %

To uninstall, use the :RmVimball command.

DEPENDENCIES

Requires Vim 7.0 or higher.

CONFIGURATION

For the relative numbers, the necessary space is determined by the window height; for absolute numbers, it's the number of lines in the buffer. This discrepancy can lead to changes in the width of the number column when switching from one setting to the other. Because this shifting of the buffer contents is visually distracting, the plugin sets up an autocmd that presets 'numberwidth' to a high-enough value so that this doesn't happen. If you don't want this, set:

let g:RelativeNumberCurrentWindow_SameNumberWidth = 0

The relative numbers don't help when Vim isn't the active application, but absolute numbers can be beneficial, because compiler or test output may refer to lines currently open in Vim. Therefore, relative numbers for the current window are switched to absolute when Vim loses the focus FocusLost. If you don't want this, set:

let g:RelativeNumberCurrentWindow_OnFocus = 0

Likewise, in insert mode, relative numbers are useless, as you rarely do movements in that mode and cannot prepend a [count], anyway. Absolute numbers require less screen updates and provide better orientation, so relative numbers are switched to absolute when in insert mode. To disable this, set:

let g:RelativeNumberCurrentWindow_OnInsert = 0

Plugin was broken by Vim 7.3.861, which fixed the resetting of 'rnu' when 'nu' is set. Add implementation that omits the workaround.
Handle combination of 'nu' and 'rnu' that results in different current line display since 7.3.1115.

1.00 04-Mar-2013

First published version.

0.01 04-Sep-2012

Started development.

Maintainer: Ingo Karkat <ingo@karkat.de>

About

Only show relative numbers in the currently active window.

Languages

Language:Vim Script 100.0%

Gee19 / vim-RelativeNumberCurrentWindow