On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 10:14 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote:
On 24 April 2017 at 12:16, o1bigtenor o1bigtenor@gmail.com wrote:
On 24 April 2017 at 09:07, o1bigtenor o1bigtenor@gmail.com wrote:
(Possible issue - - - I changed a top posted response to a bottom posting - - - sorry! D)
Don't worry, not consistent about that anyway :)
On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Matthew Brush mbrush@codebrainz.ca wrote:
On 2017-04-23 11:31 AM, o1bigtenor wrote:
On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 9:41 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote: > > On 22 April 2017 at 12:33, o1bigtenor o1bigtenor@gmail.com wrote: >> >> On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote: >>> >>> See http://home.gmane.org/ for that sites current situation. May help >>> if more people let them know they want Geany archives back, but may >>> just annoy them if they are trying as hard as possible. >>> >> Oh boy - - - I have a complicated question and I had hoped to cruise the >> archive to see if anyone had talked about any of the aspects before I >> just >> dropped it on the list. >> >> Given that geany is in the process of being resuscitated what would you >> suggest as a 'reasonable' course of action? > > > To be clear, its only the Geany archive on Gmane thats being > resuscitated, not Geany itself, don't want people to get the wrong > idea :) > > I'd say if google can't find anything relevant, just ask. >
I am using a program called ledger (sometimes known as ledger-cli) with a text file for my 'recordkeeping' (what most people call accounting).
I have tried to use both vim (and gvim) and emacs and I think I could possibly learn the mountain of pre-wysiwyg codes to use them effectively. Both suffer, in my opinion, in that they don't have a search tool that works in searching for financial data. Yes they have search tools but their quick use has eluded me after quite a number of tries. I only have so much time in my life and entering financial information isn't what I want to spend 20% of my life on - -
- training
someone else to use the system I'm presently using WITH these cumbersome and awkward search tools - - - I'm thinking what I would need is a serious programmer type - - - and why would they want to work as a bookkeeper for my business? (This preamble is the why.)
So now to the issue (the what). When I open a file (text file) in geany the physical layout is different than when I open it in vim/emacs (and seemingly most of the other text editors I've tried).
Eg
2016.01.03 (2 tab spaces) Company name 1 tab space Expense: widgets: 5202.01.02.01 (a number of tab spaces) $ 1.00 1 tab space Asset: account bank xyw: 1023.01.02.02 (") $-1.00
I am using a mono-spaced font as I want the decimals to line up in the right, the beginning of both Expense and Asset (or whatever else that I'm using) are 1 tab space (when I can set things I've been trying to use either 4 or 5 spaces for 1 tab) of indentation.
Sometimes there areas many as 6 or 7 Expense listings, there are sometimes 2 or 3 Asset listings. What is goofy is that when the text is aligned in Geany - - - well its NOT in Leafpad, vim or emacs. Switching between Leafpad vim or emacs does not seem to create this morphing.
I would like to stay with Geany because geany offers me the option of creating routines that I can call at the command line and then (hopefully) insert what I have called into the file (looking at using awk at the moment). Why I'm doing this is quite a bit more complicated than this delineated 'confusion' so for now - - please is there some way to get Geany to look exactly (in layout) like any of the other text editors?
Thanking any of those who care to tackle this in advance!!
TL;DR
If things are not aligned, make sure your font is actually mono spaced and that nothing is bold (it messes with character widths). Then adjust the tab width (Document->Set Indent Width) to match the other editors (usually 8 chars wide rather than Geany's 4 chars).
Thanks for the response!
I checked - - - its a font called Monospace on my Debian 'stable' read 'Jessie' vm. All editors have the tab width set to 4 spaces (after checking previously
- I did try to find the problem!).
What makes this confusing is that the single tab width at the beginning of the line is never different. The 2 tab spaces after the date is almost never an issue - - - but the end of the line $ amounts - - - well it shifts - -
- sometimes
to the right and sometimes to the left. Doesn't seem to be any consistency to it. That's why I'm totally puzzled as to how to fix.
Regards
Dee
On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote:
You need to provide a small actual file that shows the problem so people can reproduce it. We can't do anything from the description. With lines which show shifts both ways. Using pastebin is fine (clearly with no actual data in it).
Well - - - the actual data is my financial data which isn't going anywhere. The VM is quite disconnected from the web in fact.
Well, you went to the trouble of typing the explanation, but that doesn't produce any problem here, can't you just type an example that shows the problem with values of 12345.00 or whatever? If you can't make a small file that shows the problem then neither can we, and we have not actually seen the problem yet. If we can't reproduce it we can't fix it.
Note that monospace isn't usually a font, its an alias for some named font, so you need to find what that font is to tell if its REALLY monospace.
A description (in detail please) on how to determine what font it actually is would be useful.
That depends on your desktop, its not a Geany thing. In my Cinnamon desktop its under Menu->Preferences->Fonts but your mileage may differ.
Also version of Geany and operating system you are using would be useful.
The version of Geany was first 1.29.1 and was upgraded to 1.30.1 Thursday or Friday. The operating system was mentioned in the last email.
You said its a VM running on Debian, whats running in the VM?
The vm is on debian testing and the vm on debian stable.
If this inability to visualize the problem impedes a solution then I guess that I will need to continue searching for a text editor that is easy to use by a noob, needs a minimal amount of 'unusualness' and has a good search system. Geany meets all of these but is insisting on not only reading differently in other environments but even occasionally reading differently when a file is closed and then re-opened.
You mean the file looks different if it is closed by Geany and re-opened by Geany without any other tools touching it?
I tried to give you as close as possible a visual of what was happening but as I am using an 87 character line - - - - well 80 spaces can't display 87 so even if I could put the information here - - - you want actual copy of the file and its not anything I'm putting on the web. Why 87 characters - - - well I need room for the various items of each line and there must be a certain amount of white space between the 'description' part and the amount otherwise there are other issues. (Found that particular need just recently.)
So you have everything that I 'can' give. Hopefully its enough.
As I said above, can't reproduce the problem yet.
I looked at reproducing with changes to obscure direct information but realized that doing a good job of that was going to take a lot of time, something I'm short of with all the projects going on. Decided to see if there wasn't some other way to look at things.
Its a simple thing but that's what makes it frustrating. One can have any tab spacing you want as long as its 8 spaces. Anything else and there will be a number of different ways to display the file.
(The file is a text file. Not programming but a file with names, dates, dollar amounts and such so no real fancy anything.)
What was interesting was there are about 3 different groups of text file editors. I had about 15 different ones installed trying to find something that would give me what I want - - - a text file editor where I can use some sub-routines that I can call in my 'text' and also an editor that has a great search function. That search function was a very interesting problem as some of the 'more entrenched' editors actually have search functions that are not easy to use. There are a number of 'not major' text editors that have some very interesting features. As I also need something that I can easily train someone else to my book keeper in the legacy editors suffered there. At present I have found a small number of editors that seem to fill my needs. I will continue to use them and over time likely work with just one. Geany has a great search function and after I realized that tabs MUST be 8 spaces - - - well it works.
Thanking those that spend time in the reading or trying to replicate my issue. Hopefully posting what I have found will be at least some compensation for their effort!
Thanking those responsible for Geany for good work!
Regards
Dee