[Geany] Problem: about tabs and indentation.

[Joerg Desch]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:15:14 +0100
Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:25:11 +0200
> Joerg Desch <jd.vvd at web.de> wrote:
> 
> > After using Geany for a while, I run into trouble with the Geanys
> > philosophy of indentation.
> > 
> > Geany use the tab key and tab character to do its indentation. The
> 
> You can also use Ctrl-I/Ctrl-U - see the keybindings preferences.

Yes, I know. Using Ctrl-I insert a tab width. This is, because I'm forced
to use a tab width of 8, because all other developers (me too) in our
company are using the "official" tab width.


> > Whats the reason for using a tab to indent a line?
> 
> Under Edit->Preferences, editor tab, indentation frame, set Type to
> Spaces and this should do what you want.

Partly, because of the tab width of 8.


> The 'Tab width' pref should be
> renamed to 'Indent width', as it works for spaces too.

Not only this, IMO it is necessary to distinguish between tab width and
indentation width. Does Scintilla support this differentiation?


> > Is it possible to tell Geany to indent using an "indent width" (on a
> > filetype base!) and than (optionally) replace multiple spaces with
> > tabs?
> 
> We could add a filetype-based indent width, a project-based indent
> width, and maybe an auto-detect indent width preference. Patches
> welcome.

Ok. ;-)

I've started to play with Lua to implement Emacs/Vim like modelines. This
would be a good reason to start with Geany patches.... ;-)

Is the support for "tab width" and "indentation width" a different
Scintilla configuration? Or is it necessary to add this to the Geany core?

To obtain tabs (if enabled) it would be good if 8 (or x) spaces are
replaced with a tab right after the indentation (Ctrl-I). What is the
right way to do this? Can you point me to an file/function which should
be patched?

Thanx for your answer.
-- 
Email: Joerg Desch <jd DOT vvd AT web DOT de>