Jacob Rus <jrus@...> writes:
No there isn't. And this is a truly wacky convention from emacs?
It's not just emacs; this is very common in vi as well.
There are two major issues with changing the tab size from 8 columns:
1. There's no standard for carrying the tab size around with the file. Given any file, there's no way to tell if it uses 8 or 4 column tabs without manually inspecting it.
2. Changing tab sizes to change indent doesn't work because often tabs are used at the end of a line to line things up:
SOME_THING = 'un' # one OTHER_THING = 'deux' # two YET_ANOTHER_THING = 'trois' # three
(That probably won't line up if you're reading this in a proportional typeface, but you get the idea.)
In this situation, if you're not using the original coders tab size, you end up with the stuff at the right-hand not lining up.
The ability to have separate indent widths and tab columns is a standard feature of every programmer's editor I've ever seen, with the exception of TextMate. I don't understand why you guys don't just add the darn thing and be done with it.
cjs