Travis P wrote:
I'm talking about a syntax-aware indentation. It will change the indentation only if the line is not already properly indented (properly is language syntax dependent naturally). If the line is not properly indented, it will be indented as appropriate with whitespace.
With the "Tab Always Indent" option, pressing tab anywhere on a line causes that line to be syntax-aware re-indented (which might not do anything if the line is already indented correctly).
This sounds like it would require a whole lot of coding to get this done properly. And it's only of use to you if it's done properly, otherwise you'll turn it off after two uses and never look at it again.
Also, this is something that would only work in languages where the indentation is defined by brackets or something. And then only for people with the same coding style.
Perhaps I'm a bit biased, because I mostly code in python where it simply is not possible to have syntax-aware indentation. (Because the indentation *is* syntax).
XCode has these features too (I'm looking at version 1.1): Tab Always Indent: Indentation Preference panel: "Syntax-aware indents" and "Tab indents: Always" indent-region: ", make a selection and choose Format" menu -> "Re-indent"
This feature has the nifty side-effect that it really helps finding unbalanced parens/braces/etc or other mistakes (forgetting to put braces around multiple statement if/else/while/for-statement bodies in languages where such braces are optional if the desired body is a single statement: C/C++/Java) because all of a sudden the indentation will be off unexpectedly.
There already is a feature for this: when you move over a parens/brace/etc, the matching one lights up briefly.
Some language coloring/styling is problematic. In particular, when looking at HTML or some code, some things are italicized. In my preferred font of non-anti-aliased Monoco 10, italicized text is largely unreadable. I like the colors, but not the style changes.
As stated before: these are almost all user contributed. If you don't like the way it looks, get your hands dirty and edit the syntax file...
And before you ask: A syntax highlighting configuration editor/preferences window is already on the list of requested features ;-)
Jeroen.