Evil Traces

evil-traces is a port of traces.vim. It enables visual previews for certain evil-ex commands.

Currently, these commands are:

• change
• delete
• global
• normal
• shell command
• substitute
  • evil-traces reuses evil’s runner function for replacement and match previews
• vglobal

Basic Example

This package can be installed from MELPA with M-x package-install [RET] evil-traces [RET]. Here’s a basic setup with use-package:

(use-package evil-traces
  :config
  (evil-traces-use-diff-faces) ; if you want to use diff's faces
  (evil-traces-mode))

Customization

To view all available faces and options, see M-x customize-group [RET] evil-traces [RET].

Faces

evil-traces uses the following faces:

• evil-traces-default
• evil-traces-change
• evil-traces-copy-preview
• evil-traces-copy-range
• evil-traces-delete
• evil-traces-global-match
• evil-traces-global-range
• evil-traces-join-indicator
• evil-traces-join-range
• evil-traces-move-preview
• evil-traces-move-range
• evil-traces-normal
• evil-traces-shell-command
• evil-traces-sort
• evil-traces-substitute-range
• evil-traces-yank

By default, most faces inherit from evil-traces-default, which inherits from region. You may use custom-set-faces to edit face values:

(custom-set-faces
 '(evil-traces-join-indicator ((t (:inherit diff-added))))
 '(evil-traces-join-range     ((t (:inherit diff-changed))))
 ;; etc.
 )

Alternatively, you can set the faces with evil-traces-use-diff-faces or evil-traces-use-diff-refine-faces.

Variables

The idle update delay is controlled by evil-traces-idle-delay.

(setq evil-traces-idle-delay 0.05)

Warnings and information can be enabled or disabled through evil-traces-enable-echo.

(setq evil-traces-enable-echo t)

Visual previews can be suspended through evil-traces-suspend-function. evil-traces-suspend-function takes no arguments and returns non-nil when previews should not be shown.

(defun my-evil-traces-suspend-p ()
  "Return non-nil if both `evil-ex-range' and `evil-ex-argument' are nil."
  (and (null evil-ex-range) (null evil-ex-argument)))

;; Only show previews if a range or argument has been typed.
(setq evil-traces-suspend-function #'my-evil-traces-suspend-p)

evil-traces-join-indicator and evil-traces-join-indicator-padding control the appearance of :join’s end-of-line indicators.

(setq evil-traces-join-indicator "<<<"
      evil-traces-join-indicator-padding 2)

evil-traces-argument-type-alist determines what argument type each ex command gets mapped to when evil-traces-mode is on. evil uses the argument type to determine which highlighting function to use, so this variable can be modified to change highlighting behavior. For example,

;; Enable :change when lispyville-mode is on
(add-to-list 'evil-traces-argument-type-alist '(lispyville-change . evil-traces-change))

;; You can use :delete's preview for :move if :move's annoys you.
(add-to-list 'evil-traces-argument-type-alist '(evil-move . evil-traces-delete))

If you want to add your own argument type, take a look at evil-traces-deftype.

Sample GIFs

:delete

:global

:join

:move

Inspirations